The Pit in the Peak
by brainysmrf
Summary: The sequel to The Wisdom in the Words - one year later...
1. Chapter 1

The Pit in the Peak

"You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering...

The thought of losing so much control over personal happiness is unbearable."

"Are you coming tonight?" Sweets asked as he ducked his head into Booth's office.

"Yeah, we'll be there."

"Good, cause we only get to celebrate our first anniversary once and it's important to Daisy and I that you and Brennan are there."

Booth dropped his pen and looked up, "I said we'll be there."

Sweets held up his hands in surrender, "Sorry. Hostile much?"

"Look, my job isn't as easy as it used to be."

"Your job hasn't changed as long as I've known you."

"Yeah but the way I do it has. Now that Bones can't come out with me in the field as much as she used to, I have a lot more paperwork to do."

Sweets cautiously sat down across from the agent, "But you knew that was the chance you we taking when you decided to move in together."

"I couldn't see choosing this place over her. And honestly, I think she's fine with it. Every day she comes home bragging about all the 'other' work she's got done so... Now, I just have to suck it up and roll with the punches." Booth leaned back in his chair and rested his hands on the back of his head.

"How are things going at the homestead?"

"Fine. We're still working out a few kinks but we'll be fine. "

Sweets leaned forward and smiled, "What kind of 'kinks'?"

Booth rolled his eyes, "Personal, domestic things but we're good - don't worry about it. Bones and I are solid.""

"Ah, well I wouldn't be me if I didn't worry about the two of you."

"I guess you wouldn't. I'm headed out now to question a few witnesses and then I'll swing by and pick Bones up and we'll be at your place on time, hopefully."

Sweets stood, "Good. I'll see you then."

Booth watched Sweets, with his awkward gait, maneuver out of his office and he smiled. While he had been able to admit for some time that he had a soft spot for the kid, over the past year he had grown quite fond of him.

Later that night, once they have arrived home from the party, Booth fell into the couch and sighed, "This new arrangement is killing me, Bones."

"Which arrangement? The living one or the work one?" She asked as she sorted through the mail.

"The work one. The living thing is good, it's very good. I just got so used to you doing the bulk of the paperwork and now I have to do it. By the way, how did you read my notes all those years? I go back and look at what I wrote earlier in the day and I can't make it out."

She took a seat next to him, "At first, I just guessed and then over time I figured it out. Plus it helped that I was there so I usually had a good frame of reference for what you observed. You know, I still have the lease on my apartment if you would rather..."

He reached out and pulled her to him, "There is no way I'd rather have you in the field than in my bed - that's a no brainer, ok?"

"I feel the same way but we said _this _wouldn't change us and it has."

"No, you said it wouldn't change us and I told you that it most definitely would and that we'd cross that bridge when we got to it."

She leaned her forehead against his neck, "Well, we're at it now...."

Booth pulled back to look at her, "Do you want to cross it or turn around?"

"I'm certain I want to cross it, I just worry about you being out there without a partner. It seems dangerous to me."

He planted a kiss on the top of her head and wrapped both arms around her, "It is slightly more dangerous but I'll be fine. And, don't you think we've come to a place in our lives where work shouldn't be the priority? Even you stopped working weekends, right?"

Brennan nodded and relaxed into him, "I have. And you're right, there are far more important things to consider than work."


	2. Chapter 2

~ This next chapter is brought to you by my employer who kept me closed off in my office all day

"Sex is emotion in motion."

~Mae West

Later that night, Brennan laid in their bed and stared at the ceiling. She never had trouble getting to sleep, it was the staying asleep part that she couldn't quite get just right.

"Booth." Brennan cooed as she gently tried to wake the sleeping man from his slumber.

He rolled over with a thud, eyes sprung wide-open, "What? What time is it?"

Brennan looked over his shoulder at the alarm clock on the bed side table, "It's just after 3am."

"What's wrong."

"Nothing really, I just couldn't sleep."

Booth groaned as he sat up in the bed, "And if you can't sleep, I can't sleep? Since when is that a rule?"

She bit her lip and shrugged, "I just thought that..."

"That I could help put you to sleep?" He asked with a sly smile.

"You didn't mind last week."

"Yeah, but don't you think we're setting a bad precedent? I mean, what happens when you can't sleep and I'm not around? Will you go walking the streets looking for a guy to help out?"

Brennan threw her body back into the bed and smiled, "Perhaps...Look, if you don't want to help me, I could go in the other room and work but I know how much my fingers on the keyboard annoy you when the house is quiet so the choice is yours - put me to sleep or deal with my torturous typing."

"That's a really tough decision." He could barely get the words out of his mouth before the corners of his lips started to curl into a grin.

Quickly, he rolled over and covered the length of her body with his own, peppering her jaw line and exposed shoulder with kisses as she wrapped her arms around him and grasped at his back.

Hovering over her, he pulled his head back to fully see her face. He brushed a few wisps of hair up off of her forehead, loving that even after a year somethings with her always felt new.

"Why do you do that?" She asked huskily.

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that. You see me everyday, not much has changed."

He smiled as he ducked his head down to kiss her, "I just never get tired of this view, sorry."

Forcefully, she shifted her weight and rolled over. Landing on top, straddling his waist. "What about this view?"

"This is also excellent." He reached up and lightly tickled her side.

She giggled like a girl and gently splayed her hands out across his chest. Silently begging him to stop his assault. She leaned down and nipped at his earlobe, whispering ever-s0-softly, "I love you..."

Encircling her back with his arms, Booth gently rocked to the side and distributed her underneath of him once more. As they started to lose themselves in their frenzy, Booth for a moment forgot himself. Low and hoarsely he murmured, "Oh, I want to marry you." As soon as the words left his lips he regretted them but to his surprise Brennan didn't spring away from.

She simply turned her head and looked deeply into his eyes and said, "Then maybe you should properly ask me someday."


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh yes, love is in the purified ionized lab air"

"Have you seen Bones?" Booth asked as wandered into Cam's office.

"Sorry, not my day to watch her."

"Funny."

Cam tilted her head and smiled, "I thought so. Actually she's at Mr. Bray's doctoral hearing."

"Right, I forgot about that. Are you going to hire him?"

"Well, we have the funds and technically we have the spot but..."

"But?" Booth took a small step toward her.

"Don't take this the wrong way but I'm hesitant to hire another full-time bone doctor at this point."

"Why?"

"Well, honestly...Brennan not being in the field is new and so far she's adjusting but I'd hate to hire Wendell and then have her decide she wants full participation again."

Booth fixed his hands on his hips and stared her down, "So, you're hedging your bets that things between she and I won't last. Real nice, Cam."

"I'm sorry but I have to look at it from a professional point of view. How long until she finds out that this policy of her not being in the field isn't the FBI's but it is SJB's?"

"Look, when I brought it up to her originally, I thought she'd fight it but she didn't and I never told her it was the bureau's policy-"

"You just let her assume it was." Cam pointed out, cutting him off.

"Maybe but she's fine with it. And it's for the best."

Cam leaned against her desk and crossed her legs at the ankles, "She is surprisingly ok with it. What's with that?"

Booth feigned hurt, "Is it so hard to imagine that a woman would choose living with me over dodging bullets?"

"It's not hard to imagine at all, if we were talking about a 'normal' woman."

He shook his head and smiled, "She is definitely not normal - six years I've known her and there are still moments when she shocks the hell out of me."

Cam rolled her eyes, "I don't need to hear about your sex life."

"I wasn't talking about that, but that, that is just plain stupefying at times." Booth grinned and turned on his heel to leave, "I'm headed out to pick the latest suspect up. Let her know I stopped by, will ya?"

"Sure thing, loverboy." She called out to his back.

After Brennan had returned from Wendell's hearing, she was in bone storage sorting charts when Angela approached her.

"So, how's the new place?" Angela asked, leaning over the table Brennan was sitting at.

"It's fine. We're not entirely moved in yet and I have to say that Booth's idea of decorating leaves a lot to be desired but..." She looked up from her work and shyly smiled, "It's good."

"Has Parker spent the night yet?"

"Uh, this weekend he'll be with us."

"He'll be with us..." Angela echoed Brennan's words in a more sing-song manner.

"Why do you say it like that?"

"It's just...You're part of this, this little family now. And I can honestly say I never pictured you being this domestic it's, it's very touching."

Brennan rolled her eyes, "It's not that big of a deal, Ange."

"Come on, embrace the hugeness of this just for a little while with me. I promise I won't tell anyone you were acting like a girl." Angela grinned.

"Fine, what do you want to know?"

Angela grabbed Brennan's hands and dragged her over to the steps, where they both sat, "Well, first of all how long do you think it'll be until he asks you to be Mrs. Special Agent Booth?"

"I have no idea." Brennan responded flatly.

"Have you discussed it?"

"Um, not really. It was mentioned a few nights ago but..." Brennan trailed off.

"Whispers of matrimony made in the throws of passion don't count."

"How did you...I didn't say that's how it was brought up."

"Sweetie, that's how those things are always brought up. He'll ask for real though, you watch. I don't see him living in sin for too long with you."

Before Brennan had the chance to respond her cell rang as she stood to answer it - as soon as she heard the person announce them self on the other end, she was gone up the stairs.

Angela followed her up to the main level but didn't get the opportunity to ask what was wrong before Brennan had already escaped through the exit.

Less than five minutes later, a frantic Sweets came rushing into the lab. "Where's Dr. Brennan?"

Angela shrugged, "Beats me. She got a call and took off out of here like she was shot out of a canon."

Sweets reached into his pocket, "Hacker must've called her."

Hodgins stepped down from the platform, "Why would Assistant Director Hacker call Brennan?"

"Uh, Booth is at University Hospital in critical condition - he was shot about 35 minutes ago."


	4. Chapter 4

"Are you my loved ones?"

Two hours after Brennan got the call from Hacker alerting her to Booth's condition, she was still sitting in an empty hospital corridor waiting for news. The others had come immediately after her but with the exception of Sweets checking on her periodically in his annoying yet endearing little brother way, they had all left her alone.

"How long should it take?" Angela asked Cam in a low timber, around the corner from where Brennan sat.

"Depends on how deep the bullet was lodged. Brennan said it struck his liver but there was no exit wound so...I've heard good things about Dr. Andrews though."

"And Booth's tough, right? I mean, he's had worse things happen."

Cam nodded quickly, "Exactly. Do you think she thought to call anyone? Jared or Rebecca?"

Sweets leaned forward, toward the women, "I asked her and she said that she would notify them when she knew what to tell them. That there was no sense in upsetting everyone until we knew his prognosis."

Hodgins sat with his elbows on his knees, his chin in his palms, "How did this happen? Why wasn't he wearing a vest?"

"From what I've heard there was no reason to think the suspect was dangerous."

"He was a suspect in a murder, Sweets. Of course the guy was dangerous!"

"Ok, there was no reason to think that he was _armed_ and dangerous, better?" Sweets snapped.

Cam held her hand out toward them, "Stop it, now. You're not helping."

Another hour passed with no news, Hodgins and Sweets headed to the cafeteria for coffee and Angela sat reading an old magazine. Cam slowly meandered around the corner to Brennan.

"How are you holding up?"

Brennan raised her chin, "I'm fine."

"It's ok if you're not. No one expects you to be."

"I'm aware of that."

Cam eased into the chair next to her, "He's like a cat you know? Nine lives and all."

"If that's the case I'm certain he was already on his ninth. "

"That's an incredibly negative thought."

"No it's not - Booth is not a cat. Whether he lives or...or not depends solely on the expertise of the surgeons performing the procedure and his bodies ability to heal not on an old wives tale."

"I was only trying to remind you that he's tough."

Brennan looked down at the carpet, studying the blend of blue fibers, "I know he is, I don't need to be reminded of that. What I _need_ is an update from the doctor so unless you can give me that, I'd rather not talk."

The two sat in silence side by side for several minutes before the rest of the group joined them.

"Are you ok, Bren?" Angela asked as she handed Brennan a cup of tea.

"I'm fine. I wish you would all stop asking that."

Resting a hand on her friend's shoulder, Angela reassured her friend, "We all know you're not fine and none of us would think less of you if you were wildly emotional. Booth was shot - again and now he's not just some guy you work with..."

Brennan cleared her throat, "I'm a fully aware of that, Angela."

Hodgins leaned against the wall, "You know this is one of those times when it's more than fine for you to not be so reserved."

Brennan stood, "There's no sense in me losing my calm until we know something. Why can't any of you understand that? Why is it that Booth is the only person in my life that understands the way I handle things. You two..." She pointed at Angela and Hodgins, "You two have known me longer than him and you still don't get it!"

Handing the Styrofoam cup of tea back to Angela, Brennan stood, "I'm going to find someone who can give me an update. Excuse me."

The group watched her storm away. Hodgins slumped into Brennan's now vacant seat and sighed, "I-If he doesn't pull through she'll..."

Cam laid a hand on his knee, "Let's not jump to that place just yet. She does have a point - there's no need in planning for the worst when we don't know anything."

"Someone has to go to that place." Sweets pointed out, "And I can guarantee you that even though she's insisting that she's waiting to hear about the surgery, she's already gone there and everywhere that comes after it. It's only natural - even for her."

"Can you for once _not_ be a shrink?" Hodgins asked, the tension crackling in his throat.

"Give him a break, Jack." Angela urged as she wrapped a protective arm around Sweets' shoulder. "He's just as worried as the rest of us."

Brennan came breezing down the hall, "I just wanted you all to know that...that h-he's in recovery. The surgery went better than expected. I-I'm going to sit with him now."

One hour and 15 minutes later, Brennan was counting the floor tiles when she heard a low grumble coming from the direction of the hospital bed. She stood and rushed over to his side. When he opened his eyes, he tried to smile but the medication was preventing him the movement.

"At least it didn't take four days this time." She whispered as she placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

"Ok..." He muttered hoarsely, "Maybe I do need a partner."


	5. Chapter 5

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

"I've been hurt worse than this plenty of times, I think that seven days in the hospital is excessive." Booth moaned at Brennan.

"Well, the next time you decide to lie to me and make me believe that I can't be your partner because we live together maybe you'll think back to this moment and how inconvenient it was." Brennan said with smile.

Booth closed one eye then the other, "You knew it wasn't the FBI's policy?"

"I suspected that it was your policy all along."

"Why did you go along with it?"

Brennan gently sat down on the bed next to him, "I knew that you knew leaving the field would be hard for me and you would never do something to purposefully upset me so it must have been very important to you."

He reached out and brushed his fingers against her forearm, "It was, it is."

"And I also felt like it was time. I only ever intended to be so involved with this type of work for a few years. I always thought that eventually I'd go back to pure Anthropology. I also felt like our original mission was completed."

"Original mission?"

She nodded, "When we first started working together, you told me that you wanted to catch as many murderers as lives you took as a sniper - according to my calculations we've nearly doubled that. It was time."

He gripped her wrist, "You know, I didn't really lie to you."

"I know, you were just very vague about the details. I also know, that if I had pushed for more information you would have broken down and told me the truth." Brennan gently pulled her arm away from him.

Booth winced as he tried to sit up straighter in the bed, "It's just...I was finally happy and I thought that keeping you safe would preserve that happiness."

"I understand. I don't agree but I understand."

"I can't ask for more than that, can I?" Booth smiled at her.

Brennan stood quickly from the bed, smoothing her shirt down in the process. "Dr. Andrews is supposed to come by this morning to let you know if you can leave tomorrow and I think Sweets will be by to go over your incident report."

"Ok."

"If you don't mind, I thought I would go by my office and check on things - I'll be back after lunch?"

"I'm not going anywhere."

Brennan picked her bag up from the couch, "Do you want me to bring anything back for you?"

"Just you."

"Ok, I'll be back soon."

She approached him again and leaned down, he arched his neck up offering her his lips but she simply kissed him on the forehead and quietly said, "I'll see you soon."

An hour later Sweets stopped by to check on the patient.

"You've got some color back in your face - that's a good sign."

"Yeah, I'm waiting for the doctor to come by to tell when I can go home."

"Brennan mentioned that, she also said that she thinks tomorrow is too soon."

Booth frowned, "She said that?"

"She did, but I'm sure she's just looking out for your best interest. No sense in sending you home too early just to have you end up back in here."

"I guess...Can I ask you a question? How do you think she's really taking this whole situation?"

Sweets exhaled deeply, "I-I'm not at all certain. I've been watching her for days and I can't quite get a read on her. She bounces from fiercely protective to concerned to guilt-ridden to indifferent and then right back to the beginning again. I'm not even sure_ she_ knows how she's really taking this situation."

"I hate that I'm putting her through this." Booth admitted. "You know, she knew that it was my decision to take her out of the field."

Sweets grinned, "Of course she did."

"And truthfully, I can't say with full confidence that if she had been there I wouldn't have gotten shot - if she had been there it could've been worse."

"That's not the way I took your report. If you had back up, someone there to watch your back, it appears that this whole thing could've been avoided. I think you're just having a hard time ignoring your caveman sensibilities."

"Do you mean to tell me that if you had the chance, you wouldn't keep Daisy out of danger?"

"Of course I would but...Daisy and I didn't cultivate our relationship while protecting each other from danger - you two did and I have to wonder if she wonders if maybe you don't trust her the same because you know a new side of her, you cracked that shell and maybe now you see her as weak. But that's just an educated guess on my part."

Booth shrugged half-heartily, "It's not a bad guess. It's a hell of a lot better than what I was thinking so..."

Sweets leaned forward, "You were thinking that you're lucky she was still here when you woke up, weren't you?"

Booth reluctantly nodded, "I'd like to think that she's gotten past that need to flee but yeah."

"Has she given you any reason to think she's disassociating herself from the present?"

He thought back to that morning, her recoiling from his touch, her urgency to leave and the chaste good-bye kiss on his forehead - all tell-tale signs that she was trying to distance herself from the moment. Booth looked up at Sweets and shook his head, "Not at all..."


	6. Chapter 6

"You can lie to yourself and you can say that it is all good, but there is just too many strings-too much at stake--too much to lose."

Two weeks later Booth woke up alone in his own bed on a Saturday morning to the sounds of Brennan and Parker making breakfast. He carefully sat up and swung his feet to the side of the bed, wincing as he stood. He was healing as well as could be expected but not fast enough for his own liking.

Parker's eyes lit up when he saw Booth entering the kitchen, "Dad, do you want some pancakes?"

"Sure thing." Booth smiled as Parker ran to set another place at the table.

Booth grabbed Brennan by the waist and hugged her loosely, "Morning Bones."

"Good morning, sleep ok?"

He nodded, "For the most part but we can talk about that later." As he sat down Parker brought him a large plate of pancakes.

"We have soy bacon, too. Bones says its just like real bacon but I don't believe her."

Booth leaned down and whispered in his ear, "I don't either."

The rest of the day was spent indoors, it was a cold and rainy December day and Brennan managed to find several activities to keep the rambunctious Parker occupied and interested. After lunch Booth rested on the couch while she helped Parker put together a puzzle. He watched in quiet delight as Brennan was more animated and loving with his son than she had been with him in weeks.

Later that night, after Rebecca had picked Parker up, Booth found Brennan in the spare room she had set up as an office pouring over case files.

He leaned against the door frame and watched her for several minutes before asking, "What are you doing? It's Saturday night and I know none of those cases are pressing."

"I missed a lot while you were in the hospital and I'm just catching up. I thought you were asleep."

"Uh, not really. I dozed off on the couch for a little while."

"You should get to bed - you need your rest." Brennan urged without looking up from her work.

He cleared his throat and folded his arms tightly against his chest, "You're probably right but uh...I was wondering when can I expect you to start sharing a bed with me again?"

She dropped her pencil and looked up at him, "I told you that I think it's much safer for you to sleep alone. You need minimal movement while you're resting."

"You know Bones, I hate to call you a liar but you are in fact a liar. You not sleeping with me is just one small aspect of the major change that has taken place in the last three weeks."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She stood and pushed past him, headed into the living room.

He followed her into the next room, "You've been caring for me at a distance since I got home and I'd like to know why. Either you're mad at me for not being careful, or you're mad at yourself for not being there or you're just plain scared but something is going on and I can't ignore it anymore."

She shook her head, "I'm not angry at either of us. And I don't think I've been distant."

"Again, you're lying. I've seen the guilt in your eyes when I've gone to touch you and you move away from me. Or when you come home late, thinking I'll be asleep but I'm waiting up for you. Don't insult how well I know you by lying to me."

"I'm sorry if I haven't provided you with the level of care you think you deserve, I'm doing the best I can."

"Bones, I'm cared for just fine and I know that this hasn't been easy for you and honestly, I love you all the more for rising to the occasion. But...but something is going on in that brain of yours. The week I was in the hospital I thought, she's just trying to process things and I let it go and then when I first got home I thought that you would warm up but you haven't...And now I feel like you're just getting me well so you can leave me."

She sighed as she sunk into the couch, "I don't _want_ to leave you.."


	7. Chapter 7

"Bones, just take the brain. Okay? And put it in neutral. Take the heart, and put it in overdrive."

Booth leaned against the wall opposite of her, needing something to keep him on his feet. "So, if you don't _want_ to leave does that mean you think you _have _to?

"I-I don't know. I'm sorry but I don't."

"Were you planning on sharing any of this with me?"

Brennan twitched her lips back and forth, begging the right words to come. "I didn't want to upset you. I thought I would be able to alleviate my worries by myself."

"But you haven't been able to?"

"Unfortunately no, as time has passed they've grown stronger... I'm trying, Booth." Brennan ran her hands through her hair and shuddered slightly.

He slowly crossed the room and eased onto the other end of the couch, "I know you are."

"I have worried about things, problems, before - even obsessed about them but I have always been able to sort through them and found the best solution for myself but this time it's..." She trailed off, fighting the tears that she knew were coming.

"But this time it's not just you that you're considering."

Brennan nodded, "And I've never had to do that before." She turned on the couch to face him, "When you were shot and I was sitting, waiting for the doctors to give me an update on your condition, I had two thoughts that were completely foreign to me run through my mind...One was that I-I wished it was me who was injured. Why would I wish that on myself? I wasn't there, it wasn't my fault, you didn't get shot protecting me so it wasn't guilt making me feel that way."

Booth leaned back into the couch. He wanted to tell her why she would have gladly but herself in his place but he held his tongue - this wasn't the time for one of his little life lessons. And he knew that she had to find the answer on her own. Quietly he asked, "What was the second thought?"

"It's ridiculous." She ran her hands down her face, wiping gently under her eyes.

"Ridiculous or not, I would still like to hear it."

"The second thought, the more consuming one, was..." Brennan paused and gave into her tears, "It was that m-my...my entire life's happiness was in the hands of those surgeons. I-I don't know that I can live that way, Booth."

"What? Knowing that my job is dangerous?" Booth asked, tucking away the fact that she saw him as her 'entire life's happiness'.

"No, I accept that your work puts you in danger and I even accept the inevitability that you _will_ get hurt."

Booth leaned toward her, "Then what way can't you live?"

"I don't think that I can live a life with you knowing that when, not if, but when I lose you I-I will be devastated." Brennan practically deflated after this confession. She had been holding on to it for close to a month and even though she knew the words hurt him, there was a feeling of relief in letting them go.

Booth nodded faintly, "So, you're thinking of leaving me to prepare for the day I'm gone? What like when I die?"

"See, I told you it was ridiculous and that's why I haven't acted on it."

"You do realize that those two thoughts that you've been wrestling with are because you love me, right? It's perfectly normal to want to take on the pain and hurt of someone you love so they won't have to feel it. And fearing a life without the person you love is...it's...it's the nature of love."

She shrugged as more tears fell, "Maybe I love you too much."

He exhaled deeply as he processed her words, "You know Bones, the first girl I ever loved in high school left me for my best friend Matt. The girl I dated while I was in the army, she left me 'cause well, I was kinda a jerk. And Rebecca left me because she just didn't love me anymore but you, you are the first to want to leave because you think you love me_ too_ much. In a way, it's fitting."

"I told you, I don't want to leave. I _want_ to figure out a way to overcome these thoughts and fears and resume our life, the way it was before this happened."

Booth reached out for her and for the first time in weeks, she didn't pull away from his touch. She collapsed into his chest and she let him hold her.

"Bones..." He whispered into her hair, "I wish it was different, for your sake, but those fears never go away."

She pulled back to see his face, "Then, how do people do this?"

"We've been doing _this _for over a year. How have _we _done it?" He asked.

"It's different now."

"How?" He knew exactly what she meant but knew that getting her to say the words herself, out loud, would be far more effective them him saying them.

She sat up straight and wiped a few stray tears off of her cheeks, "Now...with us, it's not just weekends alone in bed and vacations together or meaningless arguments about wet towels on the floor. Now, it's serious discussions about where to live, it's having Parker here, me helping to raise him and it's me sitting in a hospital corridor waiting to find out if...if..." She trailed off unable to finish her thought in anyway she felt was acceptable.

"You were waiting to find out if I was going to be ok. But you were also waiting to find out if the life you have, the one you never knew you wanted, was going to continue. And once you knew I was going to be fine, it was the second part that really got to you -_ that_ I understand more than you could ever know."

"I'm very confused and I'm unsettled by that."

"Of course you are. This has been your year of living irrationally and it took something major happening to wake up that other part of you."

"So you understand?"

Booth narrowed his eyes on her, "As much as I can... I know you and I love you and I like to think I _get_ you more than most people but there are some parts of you that will always be a mystery to me but you're lucky that I like mysteries, I am a detective after all."

She smiled ever-so-faintly and then cleared her throat, "Then you would understand if I wanted to... maybe, I don't know stay somewhere else for awhile?"


	8. Chapter 8

"I carry with me all my things."

"It's late... Just stay the night." Booth said in a low, barely audible tone. "I won't bother you or try to get you to change your mind."

She turned from the bag she was packing, "It is late and I am tired."

A million pleas ran through his mind and a million more speeches about commitment and seeing things through accompanied them but ultimately he knew that nothing he said would change her mind, not at this point. "Good night, Bones."

He started toward the bedroom but stopped and turned around. She was standing in _their_ dimly lit hallway holding a suitcase. They stood for what felt like an eternity just looking at each other. There were no more words.

But then Booth found a few. He cleared his throat, "I love you, Temperance. You leaving doesn't change that but I think you need to know that when you walk out that door, you break us. And even though broken things can be put back together, they're rarely as strong as they were in the beginning."

As Brennan considered his words, she was reminded of a few that she had read long ago, "Hemingway said 'The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.' Why can't that be true for us?"

"Because...w-we have no control over what the world does to us but...we have absolute control over what we do to each other. I told you I understood your fears and that was true but..."

Brennan dropped her suitcase and slowly walked toward him. "In the past year, I have done everything you've asked of me. I've accepted my dysfunctional family, I embraced your love and allowed myself to love you in return...I've changed the way I work and travel and _live_ - all for you. I need you to let me go. I need you to do this for me."

She buried her face in his chest and he could feel her tears through his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her - wondering if this was the last time he would ever hold her.

Quietly, through her tears she repeated, "I need you to do this for me."

And then she had him, he was fundamentally unable to not give her what she needed. It was both a strength and a weakness that he wrestled with daily. He said nothing because in that moment there was _nothing_ to say and his silence stung in a way she had never felt before.

Booth kissed the top of her head and gave her one final strong embrace and then backed away. "Call me and let me know you're ok, ok?"

Brennan was stunned by the obvious defeat in his eyes and in his words. She nodded, "Of course."

She watched as he walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind him without a single look back. In a way she had expected him to argue, yell, fight but he didn't and she realized in that moment, standing alone in the hallway of the apartment they had shared for less than three months, that she may have broken the best thing she had ever been a part of. She may have broken Seeley Booth.

Booth laid in their bed, staring at the ceiling. Trying to figure out what he did wrong, what he didn't give her that she needed. As he mentally examined the events of the last year, he honestly could say that he did everything right. Or at least as right as he could, there were, of course, little things that he could have done differently but he was sure he had done all the big things right. He had been patient with her and never rushed her into the next step. He was and had been for some time, certain that he had learned how to hold her without holding her down and yet that still wasn't enough for her.

He rolled over to her side of the bed, a side that had been vacant for weeks. Inhaling her scent on the pillow she once used triggered something inside of him - this wasn't about him or what he did or had failed to do. This was about Brennan; her fears, her shortcomings, her inability to feel secure anywhere. And at that moment, Booth believed he had done all he could do to alleviate those things for her. She had to figure out the rest on her own. He could only hope that once she sorted them out that she came home, to him.

Hours later, Brennan found herself unable to sleep. She sat up in the twin bed that was bought for Parker but had become her resting place as of late. Fear that she was making the wrong decision coursed through her veins. It had been quite awhile since she had to make this kind of choice on her own - without input from the people she loved and trusted. She shivered at the cold night and at the realization that, for the first time in a very long time, she was alone. In an odd way she welcomed the loneliness, it was familiar to her. Alone, she knew what to expect and who she could count on - herself. But she also knew that across the hall was a man who would never leave her alone and who she could also count on even if she didn't always know what to expect from him.

Temperance Brennan was a woman torn.

Slowly, she stood from the bed and quietly made her way across that hallway and into their bedroom, his bedroom now. She gently crawled into the bed and pressed her body against his back. She had never really had a place that she considered home but if she was forced to pick, that night, she would have chosen the very spot she was in.

Booth wasn't asleep, he wasn't sure when he'd be able to sleep again. He heard her open the door and he felt her ease into the bed but he didn't know how to react - everything had changed. But when he felt her lips on the back of his neck, he instinctively turned toward her. He cradled her face with his calloused hands and silently prayed that she had changed her mind.

She despairingly whispered, "I love you."

He ran his hand down her arm and gripped her waist, pulling her closer to him. Before giving in to what he felt was inevitable he assured her, "I know...I know you do."

That night they made love but it was devoid of any pleasure and or joy. It was desperate and needful.

It was an act that would haunt them for the rest of their days.

After, when they were both empty - physically and emotionally - he turned to her. "You're still leaving." It wasn't a question it was a statement that he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was very true.

He didn't wait for an answer, because he had felt her response in every move she had made under him just moments before. He nodded once and closed his eyes, "In that case, come here."

She rolled into him. Her nose buried in his neck and he held her tightly and fiercely until the sun came up.

With the morning light exposing them, she pulled away from him and without a word she left their bed.


	9. Chapter 9

"Bones doesn't feel the pressure to act or do or say anything that she doesn't want to. And no one can make her. That's what makes her...Bones."

Brennan had gathered everything she thought was essential the previous night and in the morning as she looked around the apartment the thought of taking anymore than what she had already decided she needed was overwhelming. The objects that made this place a home; her books, his vinyl LP collection, their couch - the only couch in all of D.C. they could both agree on - were no longer things she merely saw as creature comforts and decoration - each item had a story and a life of it's own. She was a woman who was uncertain of how to proceed with her own life at that moment and she was in no shape to take on anything else that had it's own existence - even if it was inanimate.

The tangible objects of the world could wait.

For the first time since she was a child, Brennan was hellbent on understanding the intangible aspects of her life and very little else mattered.

Quickly, she opened the front door and was gone. There was a part of her that knew she was leaving her home and she was fully aware that she would never be able to explain to another living soul why she continued down the steps and out into the parking lot with that knowledge.

That morning while she brushed her teeth, she had forced herself to look at her reflection - to question it. She wasn't certain why but she believed that her feelings about leaving were valid and sincere and in an odd, non-logical way she had faith that this was for the best - for her as well him and possibly them.

As she approached her car she shook her head at the irony of the situation. Believing in things she couldn't see and feelings and faith were all things that Booth had wanted her to consider because it would help her understand the way _he_ saw the world but now they were causing her to question the way she saw _their _world.

It was a much colder morning than she had anticipated and she quickly made her way to her car. She threw the suitcase into the passenger seat - opening the trunk just felt like too much of an effort. After starting the car, she realized it was not going to warm up as quickly as she needed it to. Brennan reached into the backseat, without looking, for the sweatshirt she kept there. Her hand found a garment but not the one she expected. Her Oxford sweatshirt had, at some point in the last few months, been replaced by one of Booth's shirts. She frowned at the sight of the deep blue fabric but was unable to keep herself from bringing it to her nose and inhaling the faint scent that still lingered on it.

Pulling the shirt away from her face, she examined it. She couldn't recall the last time he wore it or how it ended up in a ball on her backseat but she would never forget the time _she _had worn it nearly five months ago. She closed her eyes as the memory took over every part of her.

Brennan had been invited back to Northwestern to speak at the retirement celebration for one of her favorite professors. One, she had to assure Booth as soon as the subject came up, that she never had any romantic entanglements with. Her original plan had been to fly into Chicago the morning of the event and fly home the next morning - a simple plan for a simple situation.

The weekend prior to her excursion, she and Booth had just finished dinner in her apartment when she noticed him studying the few photos she displayed on her the bookshelves in her living room.

"What are you doing?"

He shook his head and looked at her, "Uh, I-I look at the things from before and I wonder..."

"You wonder?"

"Yes I do... I know you in _all _the ways I believe are important but there are things that just..." He smiled as he sunk into the couch.

Tucking her feet beneath her on the couch, she turned toward him, "What 'things'?"

"I'm a pretty enlightened guy, right?"

"Sure you are." Brennan mocked.

"I am! Aren't I?" He begged more than he asked.

She rolled her eyes and offered, "You are far more 'enlightened' now then you were five years ago."

"I think I was enlightened before that but I'll take it...It's just...I mean, I accept that you had an entire life before I knew you, Lord knows I had my own thing, but it's hard for me to imagine you not being _my _Bones. And I look at those big hole pictures of you and-"

Brennan held her hand up, "Wait, 'big hole' pictures?"

"Most of the pictures of you on the shelf are of you standing in_ or_ near a large empty spot in the earth - big hole pictures." He explained it to her as if she was dense for not knowing what he meant from the start. When she failed to think his reasoning was cute he continued with his original thought. "I wonder who you were then, before you had the fancy initials in front of your name, that's all."

"I...was...me." She said slowly as if he was now the dense one.

"No, _you_ know what I mean. We can talk for the rest of our lives about our pasts. We can meet each other's families, compare scars - physical and otherwise - but there is a part of you I will never know." He leaned toward her, tucking a few stray hairs behind her ear, "And that _fascinates_ me."

"That's not saying much, cookies that change color when they're dropped in milk 'fascinate' you."

He leapt from the couch in defense of himself, "One time! One time, I didn't realize what kind I bought - I was surprised not fascinated."

Brennan folded over in laughter, "You talked about it for days and told everyone we saw about it!"

"What can I say? I am enthusiastic about the good things in my life."

She quickly stood and moved toward him. Wrapping her hands around his lapel she concurred, "I am very aware of that."

Looking up at him, grinning like a child and yet still every inch of the man she loved and craved, Brennan had an irrational thought - one she blurted out before giving it any real consideration. "Will you come to Chicago with me for the weekend?"

"I thought you were just swooping in there for like a day and a half? Gonna miss me that much, huh?"

Brennan scoffed, "Don't flatter yourself." Then she cleared her throat and adopted a more serious voice , "I was thinking that there is no possible way for you to ever go back in time and know me in college but you could at least observe the environment, or at least one that is slightly similar, to the one I experienced."

Booth's lip twitched into a lop-sided smile, "I would really like that."

Brennan was blindsided by the fact that she wanted him there as much as he wanted to be there.

The following Friday found Brennan tossing and turning in bed. "How do they expect people to sleep?"

"With their eyes and mouths shut." Booth grumbled.

She hopped out of the bed and turned the light on, "You're comfortable?"

Careful of the shelf that hung over him, Booth sat up swinging his legs out of the less-than-spacious bed, "It's a tight fit but hey... it's different."

She ignored the top-shelf charm smile he was offering her and fumed, "This is the last time I let you handle travel arrangements. I could be in my own bed at this very minute knowing that a car service would be picking me up in the morning and taking me to the airport for my flight. But you wanted to take the train..."

Looking around the closet-sized room Booth had to admit it wasn't the best idea he ever had, "Come on, Bones. I thought it might be fun. Apparently, I was wrong. I am sorry."

"And you know I love it when you say that, it so rarely happens." She smirked.

"Is it really that bad?" He reached his arms toward her, gesturing for her to sit on his lap. She tried to maintain her level of annoyance but the truth was it hadn't been _that _bad. Less than reluctantly, she fell into him.

"See? The room fits me and you what more do we need?" He ran his hands up and down her arms, "You're freezing. Didn't you bring any long sleeves?"

"It's August, Booth. Why would I?"

Gently he tossed her into the bed and went to his suitcase, "Here, put this on."

Catching the shirt he threw at her Brennan made a face of disgust, "You wore this all day..."

Shaking his head, he turned off the light and collapsed into the small nook they had been provided as a bed. "Just so you know, if you wore something all day, I would never turn my nose up at it" Playfully, he pushed the shirt into her face.

The feeling evoked within her by the familiar scent of his cologne mixed with the laundry detergent only she used mixed with a hint of her own perfume on his shirt stunned the woman into silence. Slowly she put one arm and then the other into the sleeves and then protectively wrapped the shirt around her.

"Are you ok with that, Princess Temperance?" He teased.

He couldn't see her face in the darkness but when she curled up next to him and rested her hand on his chest - he knew she was more than ok with it.

Booth relaxed into the bed wrapping an arm around her. Just as he started to fall asleep, she began to trace patterns across his chest with her fingertips and he knew that she was trying to understand _something_ that she may or may not choose to share with him. He had picked up on the pattern months before but had never let her know that he was on to her. But that night, in the tiny little bed on a train bound for Chicago he _had _to know what she was sorting out.

"Maybe I can help." He said quietly.

"Help what?" She asked in a hoarse voice

"You. Maybe I can help you with whatever you're so intently thinking about."

Brennan hated that he knew she wasn't trying to sleep. She pushed closer to him, resting her cheek near his heart but didn't say a word.

"Bones, something is bothering you and it's not just my crappy travel agent skills."

She swallowed hard, "This week, I've been thinking a lot about when I was in college."

"That's perfectly normal seeing as we're headed there now. What's the problem?"

"I see Chicago as the place where I figured out my purpose. You're not the only person with one. I have one too, Booth."

He smiled, it had been a long time since they had discussed his _purpose_, "Oh, I never doubted that."

She lifted her head, "I-I grew up there in a way. Not physically but another way that... I had to learn very quickly how to maneuver in_ that_ world and I did. I excelled at it. I would not be who I am without that experience." Laying back down she hoped that explanation would suffice.

He ran his hand up and down her back, "I love that you want to share it with me."

There was something in his voice that made it impossible for her to _not _tell him the truth. It was like he was interrogating her while he was shirtless, in small train bed, in the dark but irregardless of those details she could not ignore the way his voice resonated in her mind. She tried to fight it but it won - it always did.

"T-that's not why I asked you to come." She confessed like a child.

"Ok...Why did you?"

Brennan paused, struggling to find the words to explain feelings that were practically newborn to her. "After my parents left, I...Northwestern was the first place that I stayed for more than a few months...It was the first place I stayed long enough to even consider it as my home. You and I have talked about what happened after I lost my real home...You know that I-I was cautious about getting attached to anything; a bed, a pillow, a tree I thought was pretty...There was no stability anywhere for me."

Booth listened to her that night as if he had never heard these things from her before. In a way he hadn't. He had never heard her discuss the way these events affected her since she had reasoned that love was in fact reasonable.

She continued in a low, husky voice - keeping her cheek attached to him, "I know, that I still am wary of things to some extent but it was much more severe before...this place, the university and living in the city, helped me realize that I could create my own stability - it's very important to me."

He traced the outline of her face and reassured her, "That's a more than acceptable reason for something to be important to you."

"After there, I came to DC, to the Jeffersonian."

"Where you found the right home. A permanent one."

She exhaled deeply, hating that she was compelled to tell him things she, herself had only known for a short period of time, "That's not...that's not true... I've come to realize that home isn't a structure or even a place at all, it's something else entirely, it's a..."

"A feeling." He offered her the word she couldn't bring herself to say.

"Exactly."

He pulled her just a little closer to him, "Bones, we _are_ capable of creating our own homes, our own soft places to fall. But I don't think you can do it alone."

"I can see how that might be true, although I've never really tried either way...but...I'm certain that it's time for me to..." She trailed off, afraid of the truth.

Booth had an inkling that he knew where she was headed and he hoped to make it easier for her by asking the hard questions, "Does this, me and you squeezed into a munchkin's bed, feel like the kind of home you want?"

"I think so." She admitted quietly.

He decided to take a chance, he was emboldened by the fact that he simply loved the woman in his arms and by the possibility that _he_ could be her home, "When we get back to DC, do you want to look for a place for us?"

"I think so, I do." She nodded into his collar bone.

"You...You want to live with me and all that entails?"

She rolled over on top of him, the shelf above them nearly grazing her back, "I am, almost certain that is in fact what I want."

Back in the parking lot, Brennan opened her eyes, forcing her mind to turn off the image of them tucked away in that bed because at that moment it would have been so easy to turn around and climb back into _their _bed and she couldn't deny that a major part of her wanted that. His shirt reminded her that _she_ had made the leap that got them here. At her core, she knew that Seeley Booth would have settled for less. He would have been content with the way they were in that moment forever but _she_ spurred him on.

Yes, he asked the question but she had fed him the words.

As she guided the gearshift into drive it dawned on her that she had no idea where she was going. She had spent weeks _considering_ this decision and she hadn't slept at all after _making_ the decision and yet she hadn't given any thought to a particular destination. Brennan took a minute to evaluate the situation objectively. The simple facts were: she was lost, she was confused and she was scared - she needed something to calm her, something she trusted.

Temperance Brennan needed evidence. She needed evidence that loving _this _man was worth it, worth feeling the inevitable pain that she had longed to prevent since she was 15 years old.

There were only two people she could think of who might be able to provide her with what she needed. Anxious and unsure that it was the right place to go to, she pulled out of the parking lot and made a left turn.

15 minutes later she timidly she approached the small house but knocked on the front door with confidence. Righting her shoulders and smoothing her hair, she waited for someone to answer.

When the occupant finally opened the front door she rapidly blurted out, "I'm only here because out of everyone I know, there are only two people that I am closely associated with that have the experience in maintaining a romantic relationship that I feel could help me. And I chose you because the other person is Sweets."

The weathered skin around Max's eyes crinkled as he smiled, "Get in here...."


	10. Chapter 10

"Does it seem that your partnership provides a surrogate relationship, making it more difficult to form other bonds?"

As the warmth of Brennan's body slid away from him, Booth found himself struggling to decide what he wanted his last visual memory of her, behind closed doors, to be: the woman who had claimed his soul as she laid in his arms as the sun came up or the woman who was testing his faith as she gathered the clothes she had so eagerly shed in the night's darkness. He chose the former and kept his eyes closed. When he knew she had left the room, he rolled over and stared up at the ceiling. Realizing that not that long ago he would have immediately chosen the latter, he silently wondered what it meant that he was no longer drawn to subjecting himself to such torture.

After he heard the front door close behind her, he waited to hear it open again. He knew that her changing her mind was a long shot but he had felt hesitation in her pulling away from him that morning and the man had to hope. Hope and the fact that her last words to him had been ones of love were all he had to hold onto at the moment, after nearly 30 minutes of waiting, he soon realized that they were all he was going to have.

He winced as he tried to sit up. When he was finally able to move, he grimaced at the fact that the pain he felt from her was now twofold, unintentional he believed, but twofold. Admittedly, what happened between them just hours before shouldn't have happened at all. A man under doctor's orders to avoid strenuous activities had no business engaging in sex, especially when the act itself had such an overwhelming sense of finality. Last night the threat of injury never occurred to him. Last night he had been disoriented by the mixture of the pain that she was causing and the love that she was offering.

As he stumbled into the kitchen, he thought about what she had said about things being different between them now. And he knew she wasn't wrong - he felt it even if he never acknowledged it. The first three months they'd spent together, no one knew that anything had changed between the partners. It was three months of knowing glances across the forensics platform and rushing to be alone. It was three months of them and only them.

It was a time when things that had always been taboo between them became ordinary. He relished all the small moments that lead them to this new place but there was one moment in particular that demanded to be recalled again and again. It demanded to be recalled because it answered a question that he'd been asking himself for almost as long as he knew her.

Booth had gone out of town for a couple of days to a conference and when he returned to DC his first stop was the Jeffersonian. He found Brennan on the platform with her squints. They were quizzing Wendell on his doctorate dissertation before he submitted it to the university. Brennan had convinced him that it was important that he could defend every word before the panel review a few months away.

Booth made his way to the group, "Anyone miss me?" He asked with arms open wide.

Cam rolled her eyes, "You were gone for a day and a half - we lived. How _was _the gun show?"

"It was a _firearm symposium_ and it was boring as hell. Every year the same people, same presentations. You know, the basics of firing a gun haven't changed much since...well, the invention of the gun." He paused and for the first time since his arrival, he turned to Brennan and smiled, "Anything new here?"

Brennan buried a smile that she was certain would give their secret away and shook her head, "Nope, same as when you left."

He grinned at her knowing she hated small talk but even more than that she hated _fake _small talk. He knew there was nothing new - they had spoken less than an hour ago and when they hung up he thought he would be meeting her in a squint-free lab but as so often happened to them the conditions changed.

The conditions may have changed but Booth's intent had not - he had missed her and he planned on showing her just how much. His display had only been delayed and he could live with that.

As Hodgins and Angela continued to quiz Wendell, Booth slowly inched toward Brennan. He didn't speak to her until he was certain no one was paying attention. "Are you hungry?"

She nodded, "I am."

"Do you want to go get dinner?"

Brennan walked around him, shutting down the monitor behind him. She touched his shoulder ever so slightly, "What I _want_ is for you to take me to bed."

Her words were so soft and so unexpected he wasn't sure she had said them at all. When she walked back around to face him, the wicked look in her eyes assured him she had. And with that one sentence Booth's question was answered - she wanted him.

Reaching for his pain medication in the kitchen cupboard, he couldn't stop himself from thinking of the last weekend they had before everyone knew their secret. It had been just them, alone in a cabin, in the Poconos and for reasons he didn't understand he held on to those days as the happiest he'd ever had. Booth slowly took the meds and gulped down a large glass of water, hating himself for not being strong enough to keep _this _memory at bay.

He didn't want to remember the night when, as a fierce storm consumed the mountains around them he somehow ended up consuming her on the kitchen counter. He didn't want to remember that afterwards she confessed to him, with more emotion than he was prepared for, that he was the only person she could love simply because of the man he was. He didn't want to remember but he prayed that he would never forget.

Booth looked around the apartment he couldn't afford alone and wanted to know how two people who undeniably loved each other this much got _here._

A little after 5pm there was a knock on his door. His first thought was that Brennan had changed her mind but then he questioned why she didn't use her key. He chose to ignore the visitor.

Unfortunately for him, the knocking didn't stop it only turned into a pounding that he couldn't ignore. Easing off the couch, he groaned as he opened the door.

"What the hell is going on?" Asked an obviously angry Cam.

"What are talking about?"

She pushed past him into the apartment, "Ok, I get that you're on medical leave and that it's the weekend but when one of your oldest friends calls you - you should answer!"

Booth made his way back to the couch, "I'm sorry - I've been busy."

Cam surveyed the scene in front of her, "Right, because busy people tend to still be in their pajamas at 5pm on a Sunday, watching re-runs of _Starsky and Hutch_ while eating peanut butter from the jar. You look like hell by the way."

"I _was _shot not too long ago." He snapped.

"I called you last night and left you a message and then today I called your cell three times, the house phone twice _and_ I sent you a text - would it have killed you to answer one of them?"

"I'm sorry, I just assumed that since I'm not working with you at the moment it wasn't important."

"Well, Brennan is working _for _me at the moment and she's ignoring me, too. What's going on with you guys?"

Without looking up from the TV he asked, "What's so important that you had to come over here for?"

"There is a new development at work and I wanted your input but when I didn't hear from you or her, I was _concerned_." She noticed that he didn't seem to care about anything she was saying and it only added to her irritation. Cam pursed her lips and tried to remain calm, "A man who I care very much for was shot just shy of a month ago. And after not getting a response when I called him or his girlfriend _several_ times I was worried. Excuse me for giving a damn!How was I to know that you weren't back in the hospital, Seeley?"

"I'm sure Bones would've called you if that was the case. But it's not so what do you need?"

"Where is Brennan?" Cam craned her neck to look down the hall.

Booth looked up at Cam and knew that she would know if he was lying, so he told the truth, "I-I don't know where she is. I was still in bed when she left this morning."

"Where would she be for this long on a Sunday? She's not at the lab - I was just there."

He shrugged and tried to look disinterested.

"You, Seeley Booth, don't know where she is? I find that astonishingly hard to believe."

"Camille, what do you need?" He asked in a voice she hadn't heard in a very long time. It was an exhausted and empty sound.

There was something that she had always loved about him - he was unable to completely hide his feelings, they were always there just under the surface and you could see them quite clearly if you knew where to look. In this case, his shoulders gave him away - slumped and tired, he couldn't have sat up straight no matter how hard he tried. Cam felt his devastation and slowly sunk down to the couch, "You _really_ don't know where she is."

"That's what I said."

"What happened?"

He turned to look at her but soon realized he had no idea what to tell her. He knew that Brennan's reasons for leaving were legitimate, at least for her, but telling people that she left _because _she loved him was the last thing he wanted to tell anyone, "It's...uh, it's complicated."

Cam shook her head, "I had no idea that things were...I'm sorry." She knew that her compassion sounded more like pity and he would not accept that from her. She decided to try and bolster his mood, "So, you had a fight. You both probably said things you didn't mean in the heat of the moment. It's not that big of a deal. This is one of your strong suits - making Brennan forget she's mad at you."

"I-It wasn't a fight...I don't think she's mad at me, I mean...there was no yelling, or arguing and I'm pretty sure we both meant _every_ word we said. I don't know that I can make _this_ right, Camille."

Hearing the passive defeat in his voice, she shook her head and asked, "You didn't even ask her to stay - did you?"

"This is Bones, she needs to come to terms with things in her own way. Nothing I said was going to change her mind. Asking was pointless."

Cam exhaled deeply and looked down at the carpet, "I really thought that you'd be different with her, for her. I thought you were different now _because _of her."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Slightly afraid of his reaction, she gritted her teeth and continued, "You are still, and may always be, a condom-carrying Catholic!"

Booth glared at her, "What the hell does that mean?"

"In a word, you're a hypocrite. You come off as a man who values love and life-long commitment because you believe they are the best things in life. And I do think you believe that but I have never seen you _try_ for them."

"I try...What has this last year been about if I don't try?"

Cam paused, twitching her nose slightly, wondering if she was the right person to tell him this, "You're not trying, you're going along with things, letting her set the pace because...I'm not even really sure why to tell you the truth...I've known you long enough to have an idea but it's not my place to speculate... What I do know is that a woman you love, truly love , left you and you let her." She watched as her words hit him straight between the eyes, "Now, I don't know what her reasons were and I won't pretend to know what happens between the two of you but I do know you didn't ask her to stay and _you_ need to figure out why."

Booth considered her words as he stared at the apartment's front door. He hadn't asked her to stay - there were plenty of opportunities but he didn't take a single one. He looked over at Cam, "W-Why do you think I didn't?"

"I don't know...You and I had a very different relationship - we were never in love. I know who you are at work and out at the bar but I have no idea who you are in love. But I'm imagining the Seeley Booths I know are nothing like the one I don't."

The old friends sat on the couch and stared at the television, watching two more episodes of the retro show before Booth asked, "What did you need in the first place?"

"What?"

"What was the reason you were trying to get a hold of me in the first place? Yesterday?"

Cam sat up a little straighter on the couch, "Are you sure you want to talk about work?"

"It's better than discussing my failures." He grumbled.

Cam turned toward him, "On Friday the fellas that sign our checks, mine and yours, met and decided that we needed to hire another full time forensic anthropologist."

Booth's brow furrowed, "Why?"

"Brennan is considered to be an important asset to the Jeffersonian and the board is unhappy with her split focus at the moment. They either want her contracted out to the FBI or working full-time on historical finds. They assume jumping from one thing to the other might cause her to make a crucial mistake or burn out."

"Then they don't know _her_."

"I know but...I wanted to talk to the two of you to see what your thoughts were but...Do we need Wendell?" Cam knew the answer to her question was also the answer to all of his. She also knew that answer may never come.

He shook his head and ran his hands furiously through his un-styled hair, "This is it..."

"What?"

"This is the part I saw coming, the part I predicted just over a year ago." He sunk deeper into the couch, "I told you, _a year ago_ , that this would not end well."

"Well, that just sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me."


	11. Chapter 11

"He's your dad and he loves you."

"Do you want to stay here tonight?" Max asked his daughter after a day of listening to her talk without really saying anything. He knew the surface details of the situation but he suspected even she wasn't certain what lurked beneath.

"Uh, no...I think I'm going to a hotel. I should be alone right now, to sort things out." She scooted toward the edge of the couch, indicating that she would be leaving.

"This is exactly the time when you shouldn't be alone. This is the time when you need people around to help."

Annoyed that he thought he knew her so well, Brennan countered, "I'm comfortable alone."

"You always were, even as a child. It worried your mother so much. She couldn't understand why, with a neighborhood full of kids running around outside, you stayed cooped up in your room with your books and your journals. She would beg you to stop watching from the window and join the other kids."

"Did you worry?" Brennan asked, not entirely sure why she cared.

Max took a sip of coffee before answering, "Nope, because everyone once in awhile your mother would win and you would join whatever activity was happening outside and I would watch you take over."

"I was a bully?"

Max chuckled to himself, "Not really or at least you didn't mean to be. Even then you had a way of speaking that...What I realized is that you weren't just hiding up in your room, you were observing. You watched from a distance and learned the ins and outs of all the games the kids played so that when you did finally play you would win. You were a natural born observer of the world."

Brennan smiled for the first time that day, "I mean, why play if can't win, right?"

"_Exactly_, that's why anthropology was such a perfect fit for you."

"Sweets says the same thing but for a different reason." She sighed, "He claims that the fear of being an individual rejected by the whole caused me to hold myself separate from them. By choosing to study them, I automatically ensured that I wouldn't be one of them."

Unwilling to admit that it was fear and not curiosity that drove his daughter Max scoffed, "What a bunch of crap. And you let him help with murder cases?"

She shrugged, "He _is_ right more often than he's wrong and Booth trusts him so..."

"Booth wouldn't lead you down the wrong path, would he?"

"Not on purpose."

Max nodded, "Not like that detective in Chicago, huh?"

Brennan started to agree with then asked, "Who?"

"You remember, that oaf who consulted your professor when you were finishing up your doctorate. That guy was shadier than most of the crooks I've known."

She had only worked on one case prior to accepting her position at the Jeffersonian and it had been less than successful. Detective Hernst had appealed to the university for help on a case but ignored the information she and her professor supplied him with when it went against his original theory of the crime. Of course she remembered who her father was referring to, she would never have forgotten the man who had left her hoping her first foray into law enforcement would be her last, but she had no idea how he knew about him. "How do you know about Detective Hernst? I am certain that we have never discussed him."

"There are some things a father just knows."

"That's not an acceptable answer."

Max set his coffee cup on the table beside him and leaned back into the recliner, "Have you ever considered that I kept tabs on you all those years that we had no contact?"

Brennan bristled at the suggestion, "That's impossible."

"Are you telling me you doubt my wily ways?" He asked with a sparkle in his eyes.

"You were in hiding from the police _and_ running from people who wanted you dead , it would have been far too risky."

"And yet, I risked it. I was at your college graduation, you know?"

"No, you weren't."

He nodded, "You wore blue."

She shook her head quickly, needing to explain to him why he was wrong. "I'm sure that you could do enough research and come across a photo of me on that day. You don't need to do this, I've accepted your absence in my life and this isn't necessary. You _weren't _there."

"Ok, after the ceremony you were walking across the parking lot and the heel on your shoe broke, causing you to fall and cut your knee. You got up quickly and pretended that nothing happened but when you got far enough away from the crowd, when no one was around, you cried. And I always wondered if it was because your knee hurt or that you were alone on a day that meant so much to you."

"W-Why didn't you contact me? Things could have been different. My life could have been different." She asked on the verge of tears.

"I know but...After your mother died, I wanted to contact you. I knew that you needed answers but I also knew that my return would disrupt the life you had made." He paused knowing that he could never undo the things he had done, "I _agonized _over that decision."

Brennan stiffened in her seat, "It seems to me you've lived a life full of agony-inducing choices that could have been prevented."

"Ah, but Temperance then I wouldn't have lived."

"I'm pretty sure that even people who have lived normal, decent lives feel like they have, in fact, _lived_ - it's not an excuse."

Max leaned forward, "I recognize that I did terrible things that brought pain and suffering to the people I loved most in this world but I think that even if I had been a good man and lived the best possible life imaginable, I still would have had to make agonizing decisions. The best things come from those types of decisions."

"Couldn't you say the worst things arrive that way as well?"

"I know _you_ might but I wouldn't."

Brennan leaned toward her father, the coffee table between them, "In the video you gave me of Mom, she said that it was her choice to leave that you would have kept us all together but she decided...Did she _agonize _over her decision?"

"It killed her. Leaving her home and giving up on her family it...it broke something in her. But I went along with it because it was what she needed and I was a slave to your mother's needs."

Brennan, like most people, had never considered who her parents were to each other. She had only ever thought of them as a unit and what they were to her. "Now? Now can you see that was wrong? That her needs ruined...everything?"

"I could see it then, even before we were clear of the city limits, Tempe."

"Then why?" She asked as less of a woman and more of a child.

"Because there is a certain type of man who can't deny the needs of the woman he loves even when it means betraying his own in the process. He is both handsomely rewarded and horribly punished for being that way."

She relaxed her posture and slowly slumped back into the couch. She wished that she could tell father that he was being trite, that he was trying to make the reasons behind his previous actions seem more romantic than they were but she couldn't. Her father wasn't the only man in her life who was that particular type.

Max stood and stretched, "You should call Booth and tell him where you're staying tonight, men like us worry about that sort of thing. I need to get to bed."

"It's only 8:30, you can't go to bed yet. I didn't get what I need from you."

Choosing to ignore the underlying meaning in her last statement, Max grabbed the dirty dishes from the table and headed into the kitchen, "We can talk more in the morning. I'm old - I need my rest. I'll get some blankets for the couch."

As Brennan stepped outside to fetch her suitcase she realized that she had never agreed to stay there. Her father just assumed she would and there was a time when she would have left to spite his assumption but she was too tired to go anywhere else that night. She inhaled the cold night's air deeply as she was reminded of her father's suggestion to call Booth. Max had been very supportive of Booth that day as Brennan struggled to explain what was happening and she appreciated that. The understanding between the two men had always intrigued Brennan but never as much as it did the first time they all had dinner together after she and Booth had started dating.

"Bones, don't be surprised if things are awkward between me and your father tonight." Booth told her as they walked down the street toward the restaurant.

"More awkward than the time you testified that he was guilty of death penalty worthy offense?"

"_Way_."

Brennan's brow furrowed, "That just doesn't seem plausible."

Stopping in front of the restaurant he tried to explain, "Look, I know that you don't have a lot of experience with these types of things but there is a certain look a man has in his eyes when he's talking to the man that's sleeping with his daughter that is steely and..." He pulled the door open and ushered her inside, "It could get a little weird, ok?"

Throughout the meal Brennan studied her father's face but she saw no signs of the look that Booth had mentioned. In the car on the way home she shared that fact with him.

Booth was shocked at her evident blindness, "That's because he wasn't looking at you! Trust me it was there."

"If I couldn't see it, it couldn't have been that bad."

"Oh, it was _bad_."

"How bad?"

He thought for a beat and responded, "Honestly, I think the look he would've given me if he was convicted would have been much warmer."

Pulling her suitcase out of the car she knew father was right, she should let Booth know where she was staying but she wasn't sure she could handle hearing the horrible punishment in his voice caused by her agonizing decision. Before locking the car, she reached back in and grabbed the dark blue shirt she had left on the driver's seat that morning.


	12. Chapter 12

"Problems between people — it's never just one person's fault."

Brennan stood in the hallway just outside their apartment, and debated if she needed to knock or if she could just simply let herself in. When she had left there three days prior she hadn't considered how hard it would be to come back. She let herself in after deciding that requiring Booth to get up and open the door would only be inconveniencing him.

The living room was empty and still looked exactly the same as she had left it, she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. She made her way down the hall and found him sound asleep, sprawled out in their bed with the TV blaring. After turning it off, she turned her attention to him taking note of the large bandage that was still affixed to his bare back. She knew that the feeling the sight stirred in her was one that was instinctual and primal, attraction to a man riddled with scars from a life lived courageously was an almost Darwinian concept, but that didn't stop her from blushing.

As she eased her coat off of her shoulders, he rolled over and opened his eyes.

"I see the painkillers are still dulling your super senses. You didn't hear me come in."

Booth squinted at her as he tried to sit up. "Yeah, it's a good thing we didn't give a spare key to that ninja down the hall. He could've wiped the place out."

She smiled at his attempt at normalcy. But then decided to get to the real reason she had come by. "What did Dr. Andrews say today?"

"Uh, you know the same stuff they always say when I get hurt like this - I was lucky, good genetics, a god among men, that I should really leave my body to science so they can study me." He grinned at her, knowing his sarcasm was lame but better than the alternative.

"While all of those things may be true, what did he really say?"

"Healing satisfactorily, back to work on Monday but only desk duty for the next six weeks."

"That's good. I mean, I know you hate being stuck in the office but it has to be better than-"

He cut her off, "Than sitting here, _alone_, trying to figure out what comes next? Yeah, I agree."

Brennan frowned at the reminder of the state she had left him in but decided she deserved that. She watched as he slowly found the strength to get out of bed, if she hadn't known him so well she never would have known that every movement pained him.

"Why are you here?" He asked once on his feet.

"I-I knew that you had your appointment today and I wanted to know how it went."

"You could've just called." He hated the anger he could hear in his own voice but couldn't stop himself.

She had spent the entire day thinking of how awkward and hurtful her visit would be but that didn't lessen the fact that she wanted to see him, she needed to see him. It never occurred to her that he wouldn't feel the same. "I could have, I guess. I thought in person was better."

He could see in her eyes how desperate she was to keep their connection alive and it soothed him. Quietly he admitted, "It is better."

There was a vulnerability in the room that neither of them was comfortable with and like always, Booth chose to make it easier on her. Walking away from her he asked, "Still at Max's?"

Brennan followed him to the kitchen, "I am."

"I thought you said you'd only be there that first night?" Late Sunday, after Cam had left, Brennan had called to let him know where she was. It hadn't improved his outlook on their situation but it had helped to ease his mind.

"That's what I thought originally but being there has been very informative for me....Were you aware that my father kept tabs on me? Prior to ever notifying me that he was still alive?"

Booth considered this as he leaned against the counter, "I wasn't aware but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest."

"It shocked me." Brennan confessed as her voice faded out from the emotion. After three days of knowing this fact about her father, it hadn't seemed real until she told Booth. "All those years I spent wondering and he was out there all along."

"You know he had his reasons."

Brennan nodded, "Reasons that I don't fully understand."

Torn between wanting to comfort her and needing to keep his distance, Booth explained, "It sucks but you have to accept that the people you love will do things that you don't agree with."

"Have you accepted that fact?" She asked timidly.

He scoffed, "My entire life has been an exercise in accepting that fact."

They silently sized the other up - both trying to determine exactly what the other was thinking.

Regardless of the need she had to be away from him, all the things that scared her and caused her to question _them_, Brennan couldn't deny that she ached for him and she had never ached for anything in her life. She reached out for him, cupping the face that a razor hadn't touched in days. "Booth, I..."

He closed his eyes as he momentarily gave into her gesture of warmth. He could feel her need for him and like always it clouded his thoughts.

Slowly he stepped toward her again and again until her back collided with the refrigerator. Resting his rough cheek against her smooth one he leaned into her. "I don't do well without you."

His admission caused a soft gasp to escape her lips. Her eyes flinched slightly as she rested her hands on the back of his neck. Hoping he understood, she told him, "I don't want to be without you."

"But you need to be?"

Brennan nodded without looking him in the eye.

"So, you would do anything right now to let me know that you want to be here, anything but stay here?"

"I think I would."

Booth brushed a few hairs from her forehead and said out loud what he had always known, "You are a special kind of hell, Temperance."


	13. Chapter 13

"Sometimes, he is just... whew!"

"I don't really understand how sitting here eating copious amounts of junk food is supposed to make me feel better, Angela." Brennan complained as she sat on the artist's couch surrounded by pillows, blankets and a mound of food that she would never consider indulging in.

Angela rolled her eyes, "This is what people do when they're depressed - it's soothing."

"I'm not depressed."

"Well, you should be. Less than a week ago you walked out on one of the all-time great guys and even you seem to be a little sketchy as to why."

Brennan frowned, "You _want _me to be depressed? That doesn't sound very friendly to me."

"I want you to recognize the gravity of the situation."

"I do, Angela. You wouldn't understand."

Angela dropped the spoon she had been gripping and dropped it into an empty ice cream container and turned to fully face her friend, "You know, Bren I have held my tongue for an entire year. I have never pried into the inner workings of things between you and Booth even though there are things that I desperately want to know because I respect that those things are carefully guarded by the part of you that still doesn't fully get them."

"But?"

"But now I have to ask if you truly know what it is between you? How rare it is?"

Brennan pulled her feet up under her legs, "What do you mean?"

"I don't really know how to describe it but..." Angela sighed, "Ok, this was months ago. I had to go back to work one evening because I forgot something and when I got there the entire lab was dark except for your office. Booth was sitting in your desk chair, which I have never seen anyone but you in and you were folded in his lap. You were threading his tie through your hands and he was telling you something that was making you laugh unbelievably hard. I felt more like a peeping Tom watching that moment than I ever could have even if I caught the two of you naked on an autopsy table. But it was special and it warmed my heart. Do you know why?"

"I couldn't possibly remember a conversation he and I had that long ago."

Angela tilted her head sympathetically, "That's kinda the moral to my story, sweetie. There the two of you were on a normal day - I think it was something generic like a Tuesday - and you looked happier than I had ever seen either of you."

"I-I am happy with him. I mean, it's not always fun or easy but...For all the consideration I gave to the prospect of loving someone and committing to them, I never considered that it would make me so happy."

"And it'll hurt to lose that especially when you're not expecting to so you decided to forge a preemptive strike? I can see the logic in that, I can, but it's the wrong move." Seeing the tears spring to Brennan's eyes from the conversation, Angela decided to shift gears. "I have to ask something."

"What?"

"I totally get this meant-to-be thing that you two have but what is it like when you're home alone together? I'm thinking there's a lot of sex and even if there's not don't ruin it for me by correcting my assumption, I _like _that assumption."

Brennan smiled almost guiltily and mumbled, "You're assumption isnotwrong." As Angela's eyes lit up with a thousand points of naughty light, Brennan continued. "This isn't really the time to talk about these things."

"You are wrong again, this is the best time to talk about these types of things. What else is going to guide you toward the right decision other than reflecting on the positive stuff?"

Brennan considered this before speaking, "You know he's in constant pain."

"Since the shooting?"

"Even before then."

"Explain to me how this is part of the positive stuff?"

"I've always known the toll the injuries he's sustained had taken on his body, just by the way he moved, but it wasn't until we started living together that I knew just how taxing that toll was. There are some mornings when it takes him an extended amount of time to even be able to get out of bed and yet he always does. He never lets it taint us or his time with Parker or hockey or his work he just...he just pushes past the pain and...I find that very...very..."

"Hot?" Angela asked.

"I was going to say admirable but it's also a very appealing quality. It's a good lesson to learn, that the good outweighs the bad."

"A lesson that you could only learn from him."

Brennan nodded and quietly admitted, "One of many."


	14. Chapter 14

"Why'd you tell Sweets? He's gonna come in here. He's gonna cry and stuff."

"Dude, did you see that woman? Long black hair, green eyes that rival emeralds - gorgeous. Quite possibly the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in real life." Sweets announced to Booth as he joined him at the bar at Founding Fathers.

"You mean other than your wife?"

Ignoring Booth's quip, Sweets craned his neck to catch another glimpse of the woman, "She's right over there. Wait until she turns around - she'll level you."

Booth looked in the direction of the kid's attention and realized that he didn't need for her to turn around. He knew exactly just how beautiful the woman in question was. He quickly turned on his bar stool, taking himself out of her line of vision while his mind flashed back to two intense months almost two years prior that left him with a bad back and an equally bad view of himself. He nudged Sweets on the arm and whistled, "What was so important that you _had_ to see me?"

"Wait a minute, she's coming this way." Sweets said with his mouth agape.

Booth grimaced and shielded his eyes.

She completely bypassed Sweets and ceremoniously took a seat next to Booth, "Seeley Booth, where have you been hiding?"

He turned and smiled, "I thought you moved back to North Carolina?"

"I thought about it but my brother's here and I'm working on a new jewelry line for a local designer so...How are you?"

"I'm alright. You?"

Sweets leaned against the bar to get a better vantage point of the scene that was unfolding in front of him.

"I'm good. I read in the paper you got shot - how's that working out for you?"

"I'm fine. Fast healer. Still getting married?"

She shook her head and smiled, "Nope. Keith had some issues with the whole one-woman-for-the-rest-of-his-life thing. Not that it would have stopped him from marrying me but-"

Booth cut her off, "It stopped you from marrying him, good girl."

"Well, they're all not as honest and forthright as you." She glanced over at Sweets, "This guy right here is maybe the only man to ever break up with me and give me the real reason."

Unable to stop himself from asking the question Sweets blurted out, "What was the reason?"

Booth whipped his head around and growled at Sweets with his eyes but let the lady answer.

"Well, regardless that we were having fun he felt the need to tell me that he was...How did you put it?"

Booth shrugged and dreaded how she was going to remember _that_ conversation.

"I believe the reason was that I deserved someone who could 'fully commit' to me and he wasn't in a place in his life where he could do that."

Sweets nodded and suddenly knew exactly who this woman was. "I just remembered I have a call to make, I'll be right back."

Booth ignored the shrink's exit and turned his attention to the ghost of what seemed like a lifetime ago, "In all fairness, I _was_ sorry."

"I know you were and that's why I never held it against you."

He watched as she gathered a few strands of hair and started to twist them around her finger, "You look good."

"You look sad. Lady troubles?"

"I see you still say whatever pops into your head."

"And I see that you still avoid things you don't want to talk about. "

Booth sighed and his took a sip from his glass, "There are some things I can't talk about it."

"Yeah, I remember that too." She paused and surveyed the man who nearly broke her heart, "Well, I should be going. I was already late for a date before I wandered over here. But Seeley in the flesh is an acceptable detour."

"It was good to see you."

"You too. Take care of yourself."

He watched her walk away and turned his attention back to his scotch waiting for Sweets to come back with a million and one questions. He did not disappoint.

As he resumed his seat next to the agent, Sweets observed out loud, "You _really_ love Brennan."

"What?"

"That's the woman who you told me was perfect but always felt temporary. That's a hell of a woman to not try and make permanent."

"Yup." Booth half-heartily agreed.

"She does look familiar, though."

"Maybe you knew her in another life or something."

Sweets smiled, "Maybe..."

"Now will you tell me why I had to come out tonight?"

"I just wanted to see how you were."

"Do all geniuses have an aversion to picking up the phone or is it just the ones in my life?"

"I think it's just the ones in your life who recognize that the only way to really know what's going on with you is to see you...I'm sorry about Brennan. I really am."

Booth nodded, "Me too."

"I've always been under the impression that once she committed to something she stuck with it. I didn't see this happening."

"The sad thing is, I did. But I got a year out of her - that's 11 months and 29 days more than I ever thought I would so..."

Sweets shifted back and forth in his seat, "So, what's the game plan?"

"Game plan?"

"Yeah, you've gotta have something insanely Booth-like in mind to fix this."

Booth gulped down the rest of his scotch, "There is no plan, Sweets. She has her reasons and there's nothing I can say will help her get past them. I just need to wait it out and hope."

"So now you're the one who hopes?" He shook his head. "You give her too much credit."

"How?"

"I understand that she's unique, special. And I understand you're patient and willing to allow her things that you wouldn't normally allow other people but I think sometimes you forget that she's just a woman and you're just a man - mere mortals."

Booth spun his stool around, "What are you getting at?"

"You think her reasons are legitimate because you fear that she's right because she's smarter than you and you worry that trying to convince her otherwise will scare her away. When in reality maybe she just needed you to grab a hold of her and make her stay."

Booth stood and threw a few bills on the table, "You don't know what you're talking about. This is her choice and I have to respect that."

As the agent walked away Sweets called after him, "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realize that they were already casting for the new season of America's Next Top Martyr!"


	15. Chapter 15

"Ah, you Bones...you don't have to contend with_ you_."

Brennan's pulse quickened while her pace slowed as she approached Booth's office. There was a part of her that almost hoped that he had left for the evening and she would be able to leave the files he requested on his desk and slip away unscathed. But when she turned the corner and saw his light on that hope flew right out the window - she suddenly knew that she had to see him.

In the doorway she quietly cleared her throat to get his attention, "I-I brought the files you asked for."

"Uh, thanks." He reached out for them and quickly pulled his hand away before it could touch hers. "You could've just sent these over with Wendell. He starts his field training tomorrow."

She nodded as she sat down across from him, "I could have but... Why are you making Wendell take a field training course? You never made me."

Booth looked up at her and tried to conjure a smile but it wouldn't come, "That's because _you _never would have agreed to it."

"I guess."

"It's late, are you just now leaving work?"

Brennan marveled at the genuine concern in his voice, "Uh, yeah. I got caught up with the presentation Hodgins and I are giving at that conference next week in Boston and before I knew it, it was after 9pm."

He nodded, knowing that her work was her escape - an easier escape for him to handle than her leaving the country. "Yeah, I'm still trying to catch up on all the paperwork from when I was out. I've been back three weeks and still can't get caught up..." He trailed off, wanting to mention that there was no pressing reason for him to rush home but he chose to let it go.

"How are you feeling?"

He rested his elbows on his desk and rubbed his eyes, "Fine for the most part. You know it's gonna hurt for awhile."

They sat in awkward silence, neither of them knowing what should or could be said. Brennan wanted to ask about Parker and Booth wanted to ask about Max but neither of them could find the courage to speak. Finally after several minutes, Brennan braced her hands on the arms of the chair and pushed herself upwards.

"I'm going to get going."

He nodded and then lowly rasped, "You took your pillow." The previous week he had come home after work and noticed that she had come by the apartment and taken a few more items. The loss of her pillow in their bed hit him hardest.

"The couch at my father's isn't the most comfortable. I needed it."

Booth thought to tell her that he needed it more but instead he asked, "Have you given any thought about what we should do with the apartment?"

"What do you mean?"

"When we moved in, we paid the first 6 months. Now it's coming up on 5 months and...I mean, it's a great place but I can't afford it on my own so you should...Just let me know...you know?"

Brennan fell back into her seat, "I hadn't considered that. I-I just don't know that I'm ready to make that kind of decision, I'm sorry."

Booth swallowed hard, "Well, just let me know."

He stood and went over to the filing cabinet, "Did you eat? If you're just now leaving work, I mean."

"I did. Hodgins ordered take out when he realized that we were going to be there late." She smiled, "But thanks for asking."

Without turning to face her he explained, "Hey, it's what I do. It's who I am."

Booth forced a few more papers into a file and slammed the door shut. When he turned she was behind him, "I know who you are."

And that's what hurt Booth the most. She did know who he was and yet that wasn't enough evidence for her. He knew this to be true but every time he saw her he hoped that it would be the time that he _was _enough. This hope ate at his self-assured nature and caused him to continually do things without thinking.

Having her close enough to smell her shampoo and see her pupils widen also caused him to do things without thinking. In one swift movement, he captured her bottom lip between his two and gripped the back of her neck with a tender forcefulness. He felt a surge of electricity when she willingly and completely fell into him. He allowed himself the pure pleasure of unadulterated full contact with her before pulling back and trying to create physical distance between them.

Breathless, Brennan asked, "Why'd you stop?"

Straightening his tie, Booth cleared his throat, "I know that this is not what you want to hear but...I need you to stop dropping in on me."

"What do you mean?"

Gently he gripped her shoulders and moved her back, away from him. "Look, I love you - you know I do. And I also know you question why and where those feelings came from but I doubt that they will ever be gone but right now I need you to...be...gone. Stopping by the apartment and making awkward conversation and late night phone calls when you can't sleep and inserting yourself into cases that you aren't involved in is far too much for me to handle."

Brennan bit her lip, "I-I thought it was important for us to stay connected in some way. I miss you."

"Then you shouldn't have left me."

"This isn't about you. I thought you understood that?"

"Well, you left _me_. You moved out of the apartment you shared with _me. _So, I'm sorry if I assumed it was about _me_."

She stepped back and protectively wrapped her arms across her chest, "Why are you making this so hard?"

"Because...Because I'm not sure that I can have you in my life without you being _in_ my life...I would like to think that I'm above that but honestly, I'm not. It would be wonderful to think that we could go back a year or two and be the way we were but we can't...I can't, at this point, see you on a regular basis knowing that you're undecided about us. You told me once that when I wasn't certain it unsettled you. Well, you being uncertain scares the hell out of me."

"I'm certain I love you."

Booth fell into his chair, "But this isn't about me, is it?"


	16. Chapter 16

"So, he imprinted on us like a baby duck?"

Brennan left Booth's office and was uncertain of where to go next. Her father's house and the lab had been the only places she had felt secure in months but in that moment neither of them held any appeal for her. Mindlessly, she found herself wandering down the hall to the one office in the Hoover building she was almost as familiar with as Booth's.

"Got a minute?" She asked as she popped her head in the office.

"I was wondering when you would get around to stopping in. Of course I have time for you." Sweets smiled as he gestured for her to sit.

"Coming here is probably... Well...it's obvious that you're on his side."

"It is?"

"Yes, you're his."

Sweets furrowed his brow, "What did you pick teams like in gym class and he got stuck with me?"

She shook her head, "No, it's just that you are his. In the way that he told me once that Zack was 'mine'. So, I'm sure you've sided with him."

"By choosing a side, I would be implying that one of you is right in this situation and one of you is wrong."

"Isn't that the case?"

He ran his hand down his chest, smoothing his tie, "Nope, not at least from what I've deduced from the little I've been told and observed."

"But he hasn't done anything wrong." Her tone was sincere - sincerely confused.

"So, you think you're wrong?"

Breathlessly she asked, "Do you?"

"You can't really label a feeling good or bad or right or wrong - it just is what it is, a feeling. The _actions_ that people take when discerning their feelings are an entirely different story."

"Were my actions wrong?"

Sweets shook his head once, "Not if they were right for you."

"I do not appreciate your double talk. Just tell me."

He inhaled sharply through his nose and sighed, "Ok, your decision to leave was a bad one but Booth's decision to make it easy for you may have been a worse decision."

Brennan raised her chin, "He didn't really have a choice."

"There's always a choice, Dr. Brennan." Sweets leaned forward, "Tell me this, how long had he been home before he approached you about the things, things that he refuses to share with me by the way, that were bothering him?"

"A month, give or take a day or two. Why?"

"He waited a month and yet even before he left the hospital he was showing signs of worry."

This revelation caused Brennan to flinch slightly, "He did?"

"Yes, he did. What do you think would make a man not confront an issue that important to him at the moment he recognized the problem starting?"

Brennan shrugged, "Maybe he just didn't care enough."

"You and I and everyone else we are acquainted with, know that's simply not true."

"Then what, Sweets?"

"Does it seem odd to you that he has just accepted this? I mean, this is a man who I have seen fail to accept that the diner was out of meatloaf. But you leave and he's suddenly complacent and docile."

Brennan splayed her hands out on the couch cushions on either side of her, "I think that he knows me well enough to know that I don't respond well to ultimatums or being forced to do something I'm unsure of."

"You know there's more to this than him being sensitive to who you are."

"But..." She crinkled her nose, "You think Booth is wrong?"

"No."

"So, you think I'm wrong?"

"No."

"One of us has to be."

Sweets narrowed his eyes on her, "Do you honestly think that applying blame to one of you makes this better? Because it doesn't."

"I like things labeled properly."

"I know you do but in this case there are no proper labels. There are just two people struggling with the same exact issues just in very different ways. Have you considered that the reason he didn't ask you to stay and accepted you leaving was fueled by the same reason that you left?"

"What reason is that?"

Sweets leaned back in his seat, "Fear."

"He didn't ask me to stay because he was afraid?"

"I would wager a year's salary that if you looked back over the last year you could find a myriad of examples proving that he does very little to rock the boat. When problems sprung up, especially after you moved in together, I bet he ignored them or gave into your point of view, am I right?"

Brennan shrugged, "He knows this is new for me and I'm sure he just wants to make sure I'm comfortable."

"Or maybe he grew up learning that a quiet home, a home free of conflict, was a safe home. Under rug swept is where the bad things went. I'm not saying you left for that reason but I am saying that is the reason you're still gone."

She studied her hands, "I'm still gone because I'm uncertain."

"I think you had the notion to leave because you were uncertain. And when he didn't put up a fight in a way, it was almost like you leaving was his idea."

"I know he wanted me to stay, Sweets. That much I know."

"Did he ask you to stay?"

"No."

"And if he had?"

Brennan pursed her lips, "I couldn't possibly tell you if the outcome would have been different. That is unknown."

Sweets nodded, "That makes perfect sense." He leaned toward her, "Aren't you the least bit upset with him? I am, a little."

"Why?"

"For the same reason you should be."

Brennan rolled her eyes, "Again, why?"

Sweets raised his brow, "Well, he's revealing himself to _not_ be the person he presented in the beginning. Isn't he?"

"In what way?"

"You tell me."

Brennan's eyes shifted from Sweets to floor and back to the young doctor, "We're, Booth and I, we're comfortable at odds with each other. It's how we learned how to...We've spent entire days arguing the finer points of evolution and religion and how to fold socks but this decision?"

"He let you make all alone. And I, personally, never saw him as that kind of man. But, if it's any consolation, he thinks he did the right thing. He'll ramble on all day about how you need this, about your reasons being valid but ultimately, I think he's scared that if he risks the fight and loses, he'll never have the will to fight again. In a way, it's easier for him to lose on purpose."

Brennan pursed her lips, "His brother told me once that Booth participated in self-sabotage."

"Sabotage is an excellent description for his actions." Leaning in further, he asked quietly, "Why did you leave? Really?"

She forcefully dropped her arms to the side and let her hands bounce on the cushions, "You wouldn't understand - no one does."

"Try me. Please?"

Brennan tilted her head as if a shift in her view would give her the courage to be honest. "When Booth got shot I realized that my life wasn't just about me anymore. I-I don't know that I could ever go back to my old life if I lost him when I wasn't ready for it."

"And without Booth you are...?" He asked, hoping that she would take the bait for the lines he was ready to feed her.

"Alone."

"You've been alone before. Why would this be different?"

She cursed the tears she felt betraying her eyes, "Because I would always have the memory of what it was like to not be alone and I have to wonder...Maybe it's best this way."

Sweets traced his index finger over his upper lip, trying to decide if she was ready for his next question. "You were 15 when your parents left, right?"

Brennan nodded.

"Is there any part of you that wishes those years leading up to the day they disappeared never happened?"

"Would it have been easier to not know what it was like to come from a family?"

"Exactly."

"There were moments when I thought that."

He held his hands up perpendicular to his face, "Big picture, Dr. Brennan. Was it better to have had that loving family then it would have been to have been born an orphan?"

"Yes."

"Even though it hurt like hell to lose them? And it took years to get past it?"

"Yes, I wouldn't change the positive aspects of my formative years for anything."

He smiled, "Now, apply that same principle to you and Booth."

Sweets watched as his words registered one by one in her overactive brain, "That was..." Brennan hid a smile, "That was clever.

"Now, can you start to see that...that you are more than capable of surviving just about anything? "

Brennan nodded slowly, "I've spent years discrediting you."

"I know."

"Why do you want to help me? I've...I've never been incredibly supportive of what you do."

""I was told once that you, more than anyone else, wanted me to know that I had a permanent place in the world."

She ran the back of her hand across her cheek, wiping away a few stray tears, "I know what it's like...To be different and stand apart from the world you want to be included in and..."

"You were, in your own way, repaying the favor that someone gave you."

"Booth."

"I know."

"He doesn't want to see me again until I'm certain of what I want." She confessed like a child.

"I don't think that is a reflection of how he feels about you, it's more of a reflection of how he feels about himself at this point. He knows that at any point in the last month he could have stepped up and took a stand."

Brennan swallowed hard, "Why hasn't he?"

"Only he can answer that question."


	17. Chapter 17

"Has anybody noticed that every time there is a panic situation all eyes turn to Hodgins?"

"They loved us!" Hodgins proclaimed as he followed Brennan into her hotel suite.

"They did seem extremely receptive to our findings. " She smiled as she dropped her bags on the table. Being in Boston, away from D.C., with Hodgins for the last couple of days had been a good respite for her. More and more she found herself content in the entomologist's company - he understood her better than most. They shared a very similar outlook on the world - the facts first, everything else second.

"That's because _you're_ famous."

"The institution is famous. We're known for...Our work is well known."

Hodgins nodded. "Are you hungry?"

"I am." Brennan walked into the next room to check her messages. There were messages from Cam, her father and her editor but not a single one from the only person she wanted to hear from.

Noticing the forlorn look on her face when she re-entered the room, Hodgins asked, "Did he call?"

"It's irrational of me to keep thinking he might."

"He misses you, too." Hodgins said with all the certainty in the world.

"How do you know?"

"I wasn't going to mention this but, the night before you and I came here, I had drinks with him. The G-man is all out of sorts. The worst part is, it's like he's not even trying to hide the fact that he's miserable. Which I kind of respect, in an honesty-is-the-best-policy kind of way."

Brennan shrugged off Hodgins comment, "I'm going to get a shower - will you order dinner?"

In the shower, she was overcome by the thought of Booth alone and miserable. And suddenly, she was reminded of a night well over a year ago in her office when he came to her. Before any admittance of love or want for her, Booth had quietly admitted to her that, after his brain surgery and the subsequent coma, he had needed her. It had been the first time in Brennan's life that she had been able to see herself as a person who was needed by someone else on a strictly personal level. She had never been that important to anyone before.

Squeezing the last drops of water out of her hair before exiting the shower, it hit her. If he needed her then, when he was alone and hurt, then he must need her now. Booth was in pain and she was certain that she could fix it, or she at least hoped she could. As she pulled on her yoga pants and Booth's over-sized blue shirt that she'd been clinging to for weeks she realized that alleviating Booth's present pain was far more important to her than the prospect of her own future pain. And that simple fact made all the difference.

When she returned to the living room of the suite she was overcome by what she perceived to be a noxious smell.

Covering her nose, "What did you order? That smells terrible."

Quizzically he looked over at her, "Garden salad, couscous and lima beans - what you asked for."

She quickly covered up her tray and pushed it away from her. "Well, something is obviously spoiled."

Hodgins reached for the tray lid and sniffed her entree, "Smells fine to me. Maybe you're coming down with something?"

"Maybe..."

Leaning back in his seat, Hodgins grinned, "You know, if I didn't know any better...Never mind, not my place."

"What, Jack?"

"Well, if I put together that you've been irritable and tired and unable to focus along with the fact that food you eat on a regular basis is now making you want to vomit - you know what that tells me?"

"It tells me that sleeping on my father's couch and having my personal life in an upheaval is affecting me on physical level."

"It tells me you are knocked up, baby."

"That's ridiculous." She externally remained calm while internally she started to do the frantic, private math that all women who are sexually active have done at least once in their lives.

"You're right, I mean you and Booth have been apart for what a month? And before that I doubt he was up for...you know, considering the large hole in his internal organs so...Unless, it's not Booth's..." Hodgins eyes sprung wide open, "Is that the real reason you left? Did you step out on the big man?"

"What?! No! Of course not!" Brennan exclaimed. "I didn't even realize that it was a possibility until now, so how could it have been a contributing factor to the demise of our romantic relationship?"

Hodgins raised an eyebrow. "Brennan, come on... You knew it was a possibility. Maybe not what you planned or hoped or what you thought _should_ happen, but still a possibility."

Brennan narrowed her eyes. "Obviously, I knew it was a possibility from a biological standpoint. We had sex and having sex brings with it the possibility of conception, but we took precautions so it wasn't a likely outcome."

"Brennan, that's not what I meant. I think on some level you've known for a few days at least. If not, then you would have just laughed at me for even suggesting it. You may not have known exactly what was going on, but you knew that something was off..." He paused and spoke in a softer voice. "Didn't you?"

Brennan closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I stopped drinking coffee three days ago."

After sitting in a panicked silence for several minutes, Brennan finally stood. "I suppose I should get a test?"

Hodgins ran his hand through his hair, "Or three."

"Right." She searched the room for her purse and headed for the door.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"I think I can handle buying a pregnancy test alone."

"How 'bout I just wait until you get back and then...wait with you for...you know a plus or minus sign?"

Brennan smiled gently, "_That_ I don't know that I can handle alone, thank you."

45 minutes and three pregnancy tests later, the two colleagues sat across from each other speechless. Brennan was consumed with the thought that this had happened to Booth again. She, more than anyone, knew how hard things had been for him when Rebecca got pregnant and the tumultuous years that followed Parker's birth. She hated knowing that she had to tell him this, especially now, but she never doubted that she had to disclose her condition immediately. After several minutes considering how to inform him, she realized that she had it within her power to make this situation as painless and as joyful for him as possible. She owed that to him.

Hodgins watched as more emotions than she was aware she was capable of danced across her face. Finally, he stood and gently patted her on the back, "You should call Booth. I'll give you some privacy."

Once Hodgins was gone, it took Brennan several minutes to summon the courage to call Booth. Taking a deep breath, she dialed the digits she knew by heart.

A few hundred miles away, in a dark living room Booth sat alone drinking scotch and listening to Bob Dylan's _Most of the Time_. He could acknowledge that he was feeling sorry for himself and being a tad melodramatic but he thought he had earned that right. Especially after all the years he had held her hand through the worst of it all only to have her leave him alone when it counted most. When he heard his phone vibrate across the coffee table he reached for it and took note of the caller ID. For the first time in years, he let this person's call go straight to voicemail.


	18. Chapter 18

"You know that glass of wine we share every night..."

Rushing to the bathroom for what felt like the 105th time that day, Brennan ran into Booth on the steps near her office.

"I'm away for a few weeks and someone takes my parking spot - that's just rude." He announced to her nonchalantly.

Booth slowly staggered down the last few steps and stopped in his tracks. The two weeks of no contact had done little to extinguish the genuine need he had for her. He missed her and there were no words to tell her just how much.

"Booth! What are you doing here?" She looked him over; she had never seen him look so disheveled and it was unsettling - had she done this to him?

"Dropping case notes off for Wendell, why?"

"I wasn't expecting to see you until later."

He nodded quickly, "I know...I got your message this morning, you said that you'd be by the apartment but honestly, I know why you're coming and I can't stomach watching you pack up the rest of your stuff so...I'd rather not be there."

She stepped closer to him and softly said, "That's not why I was coming over."

Booth reached into his pocket, desperate for something to keep his hands busy, he grasped at his lucky poker ship, "Then why?"

"I-I'd rather not discuss here, now. Can we talk tonight?"

"Actually, I'm headed to Philly for the weekend, leaving tonight."

Brennan was taken aback by this, "Why?"

"Just getting away..."

"I need to talk to you, in private - not here, not now."

He secured his hands on his hips and offered her a sly smile, "You know, not that long ago I didn't want to talk about things here but you pointed out to me, rather rudely I might add..." He pointed at her with the poker chip, "That I needed to drop my _preconceived notions_ of how things should happen because we were _not _normal."

Brennan shrunk back slightly, "I did, didn't I?"

"Yeah, ya did. So, if you have something to say to me just say it."

"Really, I think it would be best if we talked later."

He stepped closer to her and whispered, "Just say it, Brennan."

"I'm pregnant." She offered an awkward smile and waited for him to speak but when he failed to, she continued, "I didn't want to tell you this way but..."

His eyes narrowed on her the way she had only ever seen them when he was trying to determine the outcome of an interrogation before he even entered the room. He cleared his throat as if he was readying himself to speak but no words came. She watched as his dark, shark eyes darted from her face, to her stomach and to the floor over and over again.

She had been planning this moment for the last 18 hours and this was not how she expected it to play out. She had wanted to explain to him that she finally understood that he was worth it - that _they_ were worth it. Unfortunately this moment in their lives, like so many others, was tainted by tension and stubborn pride.

Of all the things he had imagined she wanted to tell him, he'd never considered this. _This_.

He exhaled deeply and and closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. He cupped the back of his neck and dragged his hand from his neck across his chin. Her announcement was surprising but it was the hope in her voice that rocked his foundation.

With glassy eyes, he reached out and gently caressed her cheek and then allowed his hand to wander down, lingering on her stomach. He swallowed hard and uttered, "I-I'm sorry..."

Brennan couldn't fathom what he was sorry for but the confusion she saw clouding his eyes told her that he didn't know either.

Without asking what this meant or what her plans were, Booth slowly pulled away from her and turned. His feet had never felt heavier as he started away from her, with each step he took he questioned who he was and what he was doing but he continued on his path. He continued even when he saw the team, his make-shift family, had heard every word from the catwalk above.

Seeley Booth had thought that due to his past sins he knew what self hatred was but as he walked through the exit of the Jeffersonian, he realized that the past he loathed so much had nothing on his present.


	19. Chapter 19

"Men aren't like us. They're much more fragile and needy. The fact that they think _we're_ the needy ones is a testament to our superiority."

"Please tell me I didn't just see that." Angela turned to Cam who looked as shell-shocked as Brennan.

"Uh, no...We all saw it..."

Sweets shook his head and muttered, "Unbelievable...I-I..."

Hodgins started to slowly walk away from the group when Angela grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt and held him in place, "How come you're the only one who doesn't look surprised?"

"Well...I kinda knew, sorry."

"How did you know before me?"

Hodgins sighed, "I was with her last night when she...figured it out and took the test. And to be completely honest..." He turned to face everyone, "I don't think his reaction was that off the mark. You should have seen her when the third and final test was positive. She couldn't speak either."

Sweets slumped against the railing, "But this is _Booth_..."

Cam shook her head, "Why do you say it like that?"

"Because..."He pinched the bridge of his nose squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't you expect him to do the right thing? Isn't he _that_ guy?"

The rest of the group nodded in agreement and watched Brennan head into her office.

"Should we go talk to her?" Angela asked.

"I doubt this is something she wants to discuss." Cam pointed out.

"But..." Angela shook her head and quickly wiped under her eyes. "She at least needs to know that we're here. I'll go."

The team watched her cautiously walk down the steps and enter Brennan's office.

"Bren?"

Brennan looked up from her desk, "I guess you all heard?"

Angela slipped into the seat across from her friend, "Are you alright?"

"This wasn't the ideal situation to tell him."

"But..." Angela paused, unsure if blunt and obvious was what Brennan needed right now. But then she decided that those two things were what she always needed. "He walked away - from you."

Brennan raised her chin, "I know."

"What are you going to do?"

Brennan placed her palms on the desk and exhaled, "I-I don't know. My thought process has been unusually slow and protracted."

Angela smiled sadly. "Welcome to thinking at normal people speed, Bren."

Brennan looked up at her friend uncertainly. "I'm not certain how I thought he would react to the news, but his reaction was both unexpected and disappointing. I think I would feel better if he'd just yelled at me instead of acting so... broken and defeated."

"Sweetie, he's in shock. Give him some time." Angela said gently.

Brennan sighed. "I suppose that I can't fault him for that. Finding out made me speechless as well." She shook her gently, "I just wish that I knew how to proceed."

"You w-want the baby, right?" Angela asked tentatively.

At no point in the last day had Brennan even considered _not _having this child, "What? Of course! Why would you ask that?"

Angela leaned forward and spoke softly, "You guys aren't together and...Bren, he apologized to you and walked out. What was he even apologizing for? And..." She sighed and grimaced sympathetically, "I hate to say this but that was _not _Booth who walked out of here, not the one we all know."

Brennan had a few thoughts on why he was apologizing but she chose to not share them with her very concerned friend, "He has his reasons, Angela."

"And you're ok with that?"

She stood from her desk and reached for her lab coat, "No, I'm not. Just like he wasn't ok with my reasons to separate. I'm certain we'll talk and...figure something out." She tilted her head and pursed her lips, "I-I really just want to work now, Ange."

The artist sat still while her friend walked out of the office. She mumbled to herself, "This _would_ happen to her."

When Booth reached his SUV in the parking lot of the Jeffersonian, he paused and thought to go back. But then he realized that he still had nothing to say and until he did he couldn't see the point in returning. He climbed into the driver's seat and reluctantly slid the truck into drive. He hadn't been lying when he said he was going to Philadelphia for the weekend, he had made plans to go and visit with some old friends. The sad truth was, he had left that city for a reason and going back wasn't high on the list of things he wanted to do but it was, at this moment, higher than him wanting to talk to Brennan.

Merging onto the Interstate he began to silently admonish himself for leaving the way he did. That was _not_ the man he was - or at least it wasn't the man he thought he was. Recently, he'd started to see and hear himself doing and saying things that weren't congruent with the person he'd tried so hard to be for so long. If he were a weaker man, he would blame this new persona on Brennan and the emotional carnage she had left in her wake but he knew he could only blame her for the hurt she caused - what he did with it was all on him. And he could admit, at least to himself, that he was full of absolute hurt.

Hurt...

He couldn't imagine how much his words or lack of them had hurt her. He started to wonder if he had done it on purpose but then decided that kind of devious behavior required the ability to think and hearing the words 'I'm pregnant' had robbed him of that ability. Booth shook his head and vigorously rubbed his hand across his face. _This _is why he had stopped gambling - he had quite possibly the world's worst luck. He finally gets the girl, _really_ gets her and then he loses her. Not only did he lose her, he lost the chance of a family with her - or so he had thought. A thousand questions galloped through his mind; he should have asked what she planned to do, what she expected of him, what she wanted from him, what she needed from him, he should have asked how _she _was. Unfortunately, he hadn't considered her. All he could process was that he'd failed again, he 'd failed to live up to the standards that _he _had set for himself. Standards that were set before he even knew himself.

He spent nearly an hour trying to not think of Brennan but eventually his iron will broke and he was surrounded by thoughts of her. When he entered the lab that afternoon, he had been anxious to see her. Missing her was the cruelest form of torture he had ever endured. It was his hope that seeing her would ease his pain, if only for a split second. And even though two weeks prior he had told her he needed her to stay away from him, he made an unnecessary trip under the guise of needing to give Wendell paperwork - paperwork that was not at all urgent. Keeping his distance had been paramount to him remaining in one piece but after avoiding her calls the previous night and her message that morning, he entered the lab filled with the hope.

Hope...

That was the main thing that was gnawing at him. Talking with her or rather listening to her in the corridor near her office, there was hope in her voice, in her eyes, in every pore of her body and he saw it and felt it. Not that long ago, Brennan's hope had been the buoy that kept his head above water after he'd confessed his love for her and then had to wait for her to catch up. But what he sensed from her this day was hope on a much grander scale and he ignored it in the moment. He ignored it because he had no idea what she was hopeful for. They hadn't spoken in two weeks, she had gracefully bowed out of the last few cases and she hadn't given him any reason to think she wanted to reconcile or more importantly, come home.

Home...

Brennan had once told him that home was less of physical place and more of a feeling and he was inclined to agree. He knew that D.C. was his home just as he knew that apartment was his home but neither of them _felt_ like his home - not without her. In an effort to distract his over-active mind, Booth reached for the radio. He hit the scan button and turned up the volume. Like the cruel twist of fate that he had come to expect as a constant in his life, the first song that came blaring through the vehicle's speakers was _Behind Blue Eyes_ by The Who. He caught just a few lines of the song before the radio skipped over to a traffic report but it was more than enough. In an instant, he was in their bed with her that last night. Hovering over her, looking into _her _blue eyes, he remembered being fully aware that he was losing her.

Her...

Booth was going to have a child with her. _Her._ He rubbed his tired eyes and tried to focus on the dark road ahead of him, both literally and metaphorically. He knew exactly when this baby had been conceived, it wasn't hard to figure out. She'd been gone for six weeks and the month before that he had been pretty much out of commission. It had to have happened that last night and that plain fact crushed him. He didn't think a child should come from an act that was full of desperation and committed out of fear but on some level it felt like the only way this could have happened. The moment that Booth had thought was the end of them had just become the beginning of...he didn't know of what but he knew that now he'd never be rid of her and he wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Two hours into his drive, Booth pulled over at a rest stop in Wilmington, Delaware just shy of the Pennsylvania state line. He needed to stretch his legs but he found himself unable to move. The radio's cosmic joke had forced him to weigh his options. Options that he never thought he'd have to consider, not regarding her.

On one hand, he could continue on his original route putting more time and space between them but on the other hand, he could turn around and head back and face her like the man he'd thought he was. Unsure of what he would be returning to exactly but knowing he needed to shut his brain down and just drive, he turned the SUV around and looked for the exit that would guide him home.

As he carefully blended in with the rest of the traffic heading south, he scoffed at the irony of the situation he was in. Brennan may have left him but she _had _stayed in her own way while he'd been running from their problems from the start. She was confused over feeling too much and he was tangled up in thinking too much. Booth couldn't believe that he had missed this role-reversal taking place.

After spending the night buried in limbo, trying to lose herself in her work, Brennan returned to her office a little after 4am. She grabbed her phone, doubtful that she had missed the only call worth taking, but was surprised to find a voicemail waiting for her. She quickly pushed the call button and held her breath.

The earnest message was short and direct.

The voice she had missed, the only one to ever get away with calling her baby, simply said, "Come home, Temperance."


	20. Chapter 20

"Wow, backhand full of knuckles with that compliment."

_The voice she had missed, the only one to ever get away with calling her baby, simply said, "Come home, Temperance."_

Six hours earlier...

Booth couldn't remember a time when he was more hesitant to knock on a front door than he was at that moment and that said a lot considering the kind of work he did. But he had called Brennan almost as soon as he had turned around and he still hadn't heard back from her. He knew he had handled things the wrong way earlier that day but he was certain he had not read her the wrong way and he was surprised that she was ignoring his call.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

"Hey Max."

The older man smiled, "Booth, always good to see you. Tempe isn't here."

Booth turned and looked down the driveway- any other day he would have noticed her car wasn't there. He turned back toward Max and nodded, "She's at the lab - should've been my first guess."

"Why? It's 10pm at night."

"You know, that's what she does when she's..." Booth trailed off.

Max narrowed his eyes on him, "When she's what?"

"When she's...working, of course."

"Why don't you come inside. Have a beer."

Booth looked back at his SUV and then at Max, "You know, I have had a day for the record books and not in the win column. I'm gonna head home."

"Eh, a losing day requires a beer. Come on."

Reluctantly, Booth followed him into the house. Heading into the kitchen they passed through the living room, the room Booth knew was Brennan's bedroom now. His gaze lingered on the couch a little too long and he saw a familiar sight. His dark, blue sweatshirt that he'd been looking for, for weeks. He shook his head, he'd been looking for it for _seven_ weeks exactly.

Booth took a seat on a stool by the kitchen counter while Max went to the refrigerator and grab a couple of beers.

Handing him one, he said. "You know I like you, Booth. Always have."

"Thanks, Max."

Max sat down across the agent, "You know, I tell Tempe its because you're a good guy but that's not entirely true."

"So, I'm not a good guy?"

"No, you are. A little rigid but...You know why I really like you?"

"Nope." Booth said before a swallow of beer.

"You hit me first."

"What?"

"When you arrested me - you hit me first."

He set his bottle down loudly, "So, what? I'm a good sparring partner?"

"You and I both know _why_ you hit me first and we both know it had noting to do with the warrant you had in your hand. I have what? 25-30 years on you? You were in good shape with your special forces training - you could have taken me down with a flick of your wrist. But you...you _wanted_ to hit me." Max took a long sip of his beer. "You wanted me to know that what I put her through was _not _ok with you. And I admire that."

Booth slumped his shoulders, "Is this going to be one of those you-remind-me-of-myself -when- I-was-younger talks? 'Cause _I_ am not in the mood for that."

Max leaned across the counter and spoke softly, "This isn't about me. And this is not about Temperance. _This,_ this is about you and the reason you wanted to go a few rounds with me had nothing to do with _your _feelings - it was all about _her_ feelings. You knew that she would never get the justice she deserved. You knew that me being arrested and possibly convicted was not the kind of justice she needed. And because you focus on everyone but yourself, you knew that regardless of what she said, she was far too blind-sided by my return to ever really unleash on me. She was distant and short with me but that was about it. So, you did it for her. Not because of how_ you_ felt about her but because you knew how _she_ felt about me."

Booth scoffed, "Max, if I had 'unleashed' on you, I wouldn't have ended up laying next to you on the asphalt."

"That's not the point here, Booth." Max leaned back and took long drink of his beer, "I'm trying to be nice here but...you make it so hard."

Booth rubbed his forearm vigorously. Brennan had accused him of making things hard not that long ago. "What is the point, Max. I just spent the last five hours driving and the previous eight weren't so hot either so..."?'

"My point is, the reason I like you so much is that you care far more for other people than you do for yourself. That's a noble way to live."

Booth sucked in his bottom lip and nodded slowly, "So, you think I'm a good, noble guy?"

Max smiled, "I really do....And you're gonna die alone if you continue that way."

"What?"

"Come on Booth, our little tussle and the things you did for Russ - things I _know_ you did for him. And I can't even imagine the things you've done for my daughter that could have ruined your life. You want so much to be the good guy that...." Max trailed off

"It's late...what are you getting at?

Max leaned forward, his face tight and serious. "I don't think you give a damn about yourself. "

Booth cracked a smile and shook his head, "You don't know me. I'm just the guy who arrested you and dated your..." He paused and realized he wasn't going to be 'just' anything to Max Keenan anymore.

"Here's the thing. I think people think you and I are a lot alike but you and I know differently."

Booth exhaled deeply through his nostrils, "We do?"

"I've fought my entire life."

"So have I."'

Max laughed lightly, "I've only fought for myself and I get the distinct feeling that you rarely pick a fight for yourself."

"Booth shrugged, It's usually not worth it."

"Is my daughter worth it?"

"What?"

Max rested his elbows on the counter, "There's only one reason a man like you loses the woman he loves."

"Only one reason? What?"

"You didn't pick a didn't let her know you _could_ fight." Max explained plainly.

Booth scoffed as he stood from his stool, "Have you _met _your daughter? It wasn't really a matter of me _letting_ her do anything."

"It's almost pathetic that _you _think that."

As he leaned against the wall, Booth drained his beer and tossed the bottle into the trash can next to him.

"Can I ask why you're here?"

Booth gripped the back of his neck, "I need to talk to her. I called her a few hours ago and I haven't heard back so..."

"I told you where she is, sh-"

Cutting him off, Booth confessed just above a whisper, "Sh-She's pregnant."

Max nodded, very few things surprised a man who had lived the kind of life that he had.

Booth dragged his hands down his face and looked at the man who had caused the woman he loved so much pain and agony. He knew that he had to make this right, "Look Max, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here for her and..."

"I know you will because you're good and noble, like I said you were." Max smiled. "And she loves, that I know, and with her you're not alone, are you?"

Dragging his feet, he made his way back to the stool and rested his palms on it. He turned and looked over at Max, "I know this didn't happen the way it ought to but...I do love her and I think...."

The older man looked up at him, "Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be."


	21. Chapter 21

"You love someone....Maybe they'll break your heart. Maybe you'll break their heart and never be able to look at yourself the same way again...Those are the risks."

Brennan had sunk into her couch as soon as she heard Booth's message. It was not what she was expecting but it was exactly what she wanted.

Alone in her office at dawn, Brennan listened to the voicemail several times. She listened repeatedly because she was trying to determine if the message was fueled by need or want but more than anything, she listened because she missed his voice.

"Come home, Temperance." She mumbled under her breath. _Temperance_. He hadn't called her Bones since the night she decided to leave him and she wasn't sure what that meant.

Intellectually, she knew that when he initially gave her the nickname it was boyish taunt meant to aggravate her. Then it turned into a means of uniting them, giving him a special connection to her that no one else was privy to. But then over the years they had spent together it had become a term of affection that was reserved solely for him. He only used her given name sparingly, it had weight when he said it and right now that weight was crushing her.

She thought back to the events of the previous afternoon. When he had first come down the steps toward her, he had smiled and it was not insincere. As they stood in that hallway and he baited her to bicker with him, the smile grew bigger. And then two words obliterated it.

Of course, she was hurt by his reaction but on some level she understood and nearly thirteen hours later, she still didn't know what would have been the correct thing for him to have done.

Angela and the rest of the team, for that matter, had latched onto the fact that he simply apologized and left. While Brennan had latched onto the warmth in his touch and the confusion on his face. It was confusion born out of pain and doubt.

Brennan gathered her things and left the lab, thankful that it was a Saturday and that no one would notice she had been there all night. She wasn't in the right frame of mind to talk to anyone except for the man who had asked her to come home.

Fifteen minutes later, Brennan let herself into the apartment. She had expected Booth to be in bed so early on a Saturday morning but she hadn't expected the compulsion she felt to be in there with him when she entered the bedroom. Quietly as she could, she slipped her coat and shoes off and eased into the bed.

Pulling the blanket around her, she thought she had successfully managed to not wake him until she heard;

"I will _always_ hear you come in." Booth rolled over to face her, still half-asleep, "What are you..."

"I got your message." She smiled faintly.

He stretched his neck up to look over her shoulder, "I left that like...10 hours ago."

"Did it expire?" She asked as she laid her arm across his bare chest.

He wasn't certain why she had come or if she would stay but she was there now and he couldn't pass that up. Unlike his previous addiction, there was no 12-step program for her. He smiled and shook his head, "Nah..."

Brennan laughed lightly as he pulled her to him and ran his fingers through her hair. With his lips on her neck he gripped her tightly. As he slowly undressed her, he thought of all the things he wanted to say to her but once her clothes were on the floor all he could utter was, "Bones...."

Booth ran his lips along the curve of her neck and the sweet hollow above her collarbone, down across her soft belly. She ran her fingertips along the coiled muscle of his arms, his back and his thighs. As they locked into an embrace, and she felt the pounding of his heart against hers and she was thrilled to see no distance in his eyes and even more so to hear him whisper her name, the one he gave her, over and over.

After, they slept huddled together in what once was their bed. And because of who they were, neither would ever admit that it was the soundest sleep they'd had in months.

Hours later, as the sun was going down, Brennan awoke to the sensation of Booth's hand skimming up and down her side, wanting to approach her stomach but never finding the courage to land there. She turned over to look at him and she was surprised to see the same look of confusion she had seen the previous day.

"What's wrong?" She asked as pulled the sheet up to cover her torso.

He cleared his throat, "Uh...I just...We can talk about it later."

"I'd prefer to talk now." She wiggled back and forth to sit up.

Booth sighed, "Have you been to the doctor yet?"

"No, I've only known for two days. I'll call on Monday."

Booth nodded, "Good...Do you have any thoughts...?"

"Regarding what exactly?"

"I mean, well you just found out...you know it's early and...you're not..." He stammered.

"What are you asking, Booth?"

He exhaled deeply and looked away from her, "Uh...Are you keeping the baby?"

Brennan's head snapped around, "How can _you..._you of all people ask me that!"

Booth pulled back away from her,"It's a logical question for a single woman."

"Single woman?" There was hurt in every syllable she spoke. "I came _home_."

Booth rolled off the bed, "Yeah, because I asked you to. Not on your own."

"I want to be here, Booth. I do." She reached for her clothes on the side of the bed and watched him walk out of the room. After dressing she found him in the kitchen, standing in front of the refrigerator."Do you not want me here?"

He slammed the door shut and spun around, "Of course I want you here - I never wanted you to leave!"

Brennan shrunk back, "You can't want me here and be angry at me at the same time."

"Why not?''

"I-It doesn't make any sense."

He laughed under his breath, "I know...It's kinda like leaving someone because you love them, right?"

Brennan recoiled at his remark, "Is this some kind of punishment? Ask me to come back just to make me leave?"

"I don't want you to leave. I want you here forever.... But I _am_ angry,...I am." When he saw her lips start to form more questions, he continued. "That doesn't mean I don't love you, you know I do. It just means...it's going to take time."

"How much time?"

"I don't know. You can't really plan on when hurt is gonna stop hurting."

"I-I..." She rubbed her eyes with both hands and then looked at him, "I don't....I 've never experienced you angry at me for an extended period of time....What would that be like? The waiting?"

"I don't know. I've never had anyone wait and I've never waited myself." He confessed quietly, suddenly feeling several shades of guilty for his previous remarks.

She looked up at him with eyes barely holding tears at bay, "Do...Do you want me to wait?"


	22. Chapter 22

"And if you can't forgive me, I beg you, honey, if you can't forgive me, please forgive your father."

_"Do...Do you want me to wait?"_

"I need you to." Booth looked up intently at her, "I _need_ you to because I think you're the only person I could wait for.

"Ok." Brennan nodded slowly, comforted that this trial would be double blind.

"But..." He paused and hoped that she would understand not fear his ultimatum, "I want you home, for good but...I don't want you here if you don't _know _that you'll stay. I refuse to go through this again, I don't know that I would survive."

His voice was steady and free of any hesitation - it sent a chill down her spine. The rational part of Brennan wanted to tell him that there was no way of determining the future or how she may feel in it. The other part of her, the one she hadn't given a name to yet, the one that just loved him understood that what he wanted to hear was that she was certain in the present. And to her surprise, in that moment, she was not.

Brennan let herself into her father's house and dropped her keys on the table by the door. She slowly made her way to the kitchen.

"I thought you weren't working in the field anymore?" Max asked as Brennan entered the kitchen.

Brennan pulled her scarf off and tossed it onto the counter, "I'm not. Why?"

"You got home from Boston Friday morning, stopped in, changed your clothes and now it's a few hours shy of Sunday. I figured you were working on a case."

"No, yesterday I lost track of time while performing and authentication and then today I went to see Booth. I'm sorry - I should've called you."

"Don't be sorry, you're an adult. " He smiled knowingly, "How is Booth?"

"Uh, he's...he's fine." Brennan went to the cupboards, opening them mindlessly not really hungry but starving at the same time.

"Any progress between you two?"

Brennan reached for a box of cereal and read the label, "Some."

It was too late in the day for Max to slowly draw the truth from her. She had his ability to deflect and her mother's stubborn streak - it was a deadly combination. Max spun around on his stool, "Look, I have always believed that parents need to let their children make their own mistakes but-"

She cut him off, "It seems to me that you aren't exactly the right person to have parenting theories."

"Ok. " Max paused, cursing and loving his daughter's brilliant mind, "In a completely non-parental way, I've always thought that people need to make and deal with the consequences of their own mistakes by themselves."

"I agree. It's a valuable, necessary part of our experience."

"_Except..._" Max continued, "When they are on the course to catastrophe and need help and there is someone who's already lived through it. Don't you think that there is value in hearing what people before you experienced?"

Brennan smiled at what she found to be an absurd question, "Of course Dad, that is the basis of what I do."

Max smiled for getting his approach right, "Good. Get out. Go home to Booth."

"What?"

"You just agreed that my knowledge is valuable."

She put the box down, "Not you specifically...just that your theory _in general_ was correct or at least close to being correct. I don't see how your experiences can help me at this juncture in my own life."

"They can help you because as someone who abandoned his own family, I can urge you not to do the same to yours." He explained softly.

"Mine?" She gasped. She wasn't sure if he was speaking of her birth family or the other 'kind' she had found on her own.

"Less than 24 hours ago, a man stood in this kitchen and erased more of my guilt than if I spent every day in church kneeling on rice begging for forgiveness. Guilt that I had for leaving you, for handicapping you with the belief that you were better alone. Guilt for you not having a family. That man_ loves_ you despite and maybe even because of what you're putting him through."

"Booth? Booth was _here_?"

"Didn't he tell you?"

"No, he didn't tell me." She slammed the cupboard closed behind her. "Why was he here? "

"First of all calm down, it's not good for the baby." Max grinned at her wide eyes and jaw dropping open, "He was here because he was looking for you - he came looking for you and when you weren't here we talked."

Brennan shook her head back and forth and scoffed, "Other then telling you something he had _no _right telling you, what else did he say?"

"Tempe, saying he had no right to tell me makes it sound like he won't be around and we both know that's not true, right?" Brennan reluctantly nodded and he continued, "He and I talked mainly about him. Honestly, we didn't say much about you."

"I'm supposed to believe that the two you sat here and didn't talk about me? That you didn't try to give him pointers on how to _handle_ me?" She asked with just a touch of sarcasm.

Max laughed under his breath, "People learn pretty quickly that there are no pointers on how to handle you. And even if there were, Booth is not the kind of man to use a crib sheet."

Brennan collapsed on the stool across from him and rested her elbows on the counter, "What did he tell you?"

"Not as much as I told him but then he's got an iron jaw and I've got the gift of gab." He winked at her.

Sitting this close to him, in the kitchen reminded Brennan of the man she had thought her father was before the truth was revealed. This memory caused her to confess, "I want to go home."

"Ok, what's stopping you? Booth not ready?"

"No, I mean...that was the whole point of him looking for me was he wants me to come home."

"Why aren't you packing your stuff?"

"Because..." She dropped her head into her hands and ran her fingers through her hair. "Because even though he loves and he wants me back he's still very hurt and angry at the manner in which I left."

Max reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder, "I can't say I blame him. Can you?"

"It's not just that he's angry, it's that he doesn't know when he won't be anymore. I don't see the benefit to either of us to live in that kind environment. I mean, who lives like that?"

"Everyone." When he saw her face contort in confusion he continued, "Not all the time but...it's a shame at 32 years old you don't know this...Relationships are living things - not literally, I know. They get sick, they mend and they get healthy again. It's a cycle - it's normal , Temperance. Your mother was mad at me for all of 1976, I didn't even get to enjoy the Bicentennial and the chances of me being around for the Tricenntial are looking worse everyday."

She laughed for the first time in days.

"The point is, it's hard and it's soul-sucking at times but at the end of the day you have a partner who's soul is equally sucked and you have a family and you have a life. And that's unequivocally better than being alone any way you look at it. Play it his way for awhile, I'm certain your way has been the only record spinnin' for quite some time."

An hour later, Brennan put her key in the lock of her apartment and pushed the door open only to have it stopped by the chain.

Booth had been dozing on the couch when he heard the door being forced open. He jogged over to it and opened the door to find Brennan, with her suitcase, her pillow and his blue shirt in her arms.

They locked eyes and a silent agreement was made. She crossed the threshold and then he sealed the door behind them.


	23. Chapter 23

~ We are all of us your squints. ~

"Tell me you guys heard that today?" Angela whined more than asked as she was belly up to the bar with Cam and Hodgins.

"Heard what?" Cam asked.

"He called her _Brennan_." She stated slowly and then paused, waiting for the horror to hit them.

"Who did?"

"Booth called Brennan_ Brennan_ while we were on the platform. Everyone was there - you guys were there, you didn't hear?"

"It _is _her name." Hodgins took a sip of beer before asking, "Why is this a happening worthy of the three of us _and_ Sweets meeting after work?"

She cut her eyes at him, "You know why, Jack."

"Angela, they're in a rough patch. I've heard him call her Brennan before - it's not that big of a deal." Cam pushed the stool between her and Hodgins toward the artist. "Sit down and have a drink."

"He has called her that _maybe _once. Even in the beginning, it went from Dr. Brennan to Bones - no in between." She twisted a straw around her finger and plotted her next words. "She moved back almost two weeks ago. They have to be planning for the baby, right? But you've seen them around the lab? Tired, quiet and now this? This is _not _good guys." Angela slumped down on her stool.

Hodgins turned toward her, "Maybe he doesn't want the mother of his child to be called _Bones,_ did you think about that?"

"Or as far as we know maybe she finally has enough leverage to get him to stop calling her that." Cam said, knowing there was no way she was right. She had to admit that the past week and a half had not been Booth and Brennan's finest days. She noticed that more and more Booth was finding reasons to not come by the lab and when he did his stays were short. Brennan, on the other hand, couldn't stay in the lab long enough or have enough work to do. The only mention of the impending bundle of joy had been when Brennan notified she'd be late to work for an appointment.

The intriguing part of it all, to Cam, was that even with the markers of discontent tattoed all over them, they were still _them._ She still listened to every word he said with a focused intensity and he always had one eye on her irregardless of what was going on around them. She wondered how things were when they were alone but always quickly decided it wasn't her business.

As Sweets entered the bar Angela flagged him down, "I'm sure Sweets will agree that there is something wrong - you two have no insight into the heart."

"Ok, I am here for..." He held up a post-it note and read, "A 'non-case related but very important to future-case related issues meeting.' Really?" He looked up at her, "Really? That was the best message you could leave with my secretary?"

She shrugged, "I was in the middle of a ramble and just couldn't stop myself."

"Why am I here?" He asked, taking a seat next to Hodgins. Since overhearing Brennan's confession of pregnancy and watching Booth's never-expected exit, Sweets had made himself scarce.

"Have you noticed any changes in Booth?" Angela asked in a childlike timber.

Sweets exhaled and rolled his eyes, "Since when?"

"Since Brennan moved back in. Since we all found out about the Boothling?"

He quickly shook his head, "Uh, I-I haven't talked to him since then, no."

The other three bent their necks to look down the bar at the littlest squint in disbelief.

"What?" His voice squeaked, " It's been like a week and there haven't been any cases that I'm needed for...And you know, he's not the only FBI agent that I speak to. I work in a building filled with hundreds of 'em and most of them talk to me sometimes."

"It's been longer than a week, Sweets. He really hasn't come to you about anything?" Angela asked still hopeful for information.

"I said we haven't talked - why would I be lying?" Sweets asked as he flagged the bartender down.

Cam grinned, "Well, Booth does have a way of getting people to say and do things they wouldn't normally - just so you know he won't really break your legs. It's a ploy."

Sweets dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, "I have not been threatened to _not _tell you anything because he and I haven't spoken!"

Hodgins smiled, "Do you expect us to believe that after Brennan left and then came back knocked up you haven't felt the need to buzz around and figure out what's going on?"

"We spoke plenty at first but since ...No, I haven't. I've been busy. You guys think that he comes to me with everything but the truth is...He doesn't even like me."

Angela frowned and then smiled, "That would be pathetic if it wasn't so adorable....Booth likes you, he wouldn't keep you around if he didn't."

He rolled his eyes at the same words he'd been hearing from his wife all week, "Daisy says the same thing...Look, he hasn't come to me and I'm afraid that if I approach him too soon I won't be able to help. I-I can only observe for now."

Cam could see the distress building in the doctor's face, knowing exactly how he felt she stepped in, "Angela, why don't you just tell him why you wanted to see us."

Angela took a long sip of her amaretto sour and the said, "Today on the _platform_, in front of everyone, Booth called Brennan _Brennan_."

"He called her by her name?" Sweets asked with his brow arched.

"Not good, is it?" She asked, waiting to be vindicated.

Sweets rocked his head back and forth, "I see your concern but at the same time it _is _her name so..." He blew a large gust of air through his lips, "Have you entertained the notion that maybe there's a negative connotation for him to the moniker Bones? I mean, death and rotting corpses isn't exactly the image you want to pop up when you think about the woman carrying your child so...maybe he's looking for a change?"

"Dude!" Hodgins slapped him on the arm, "That's what I said."

Sweets bent his neck further to get a look at the artist, "Actually,I'm a lot more interested in why you feel the forensic platform is key to what you're concerned about. Based on your phrasing you find it to be very significant.""

"Because...That's where they are supposed to be..." Angela stumbled through her words, unsure of them. "You know, usually it's..." She looked toward Cam and then Hodgins, "Neither of you are blind - you see it and I know you do."

They nodded in admittance.

Hodgins didn't have a specific example of _what _was off but he couldn't deny that something wasn't right. He felt guilty for understanding Booth and questioning Brennan especially now.

"I understand." Sweets nodded sympathetically. "They're adapting to an unexpected situation and neither of them adapt well to anything, Be patient with them. Give them time."

Angela's eyes flinched, "You really think that...."

"Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine how this would rock your world. Now, take your level of fear and anxiety about it and add it to everything else they're dealing with. Then take that and multiply it with the people they are at a fundamental level."

The four worked out the equation silently.

Angela considered this and slowly nodded, "Ok."

"You needed _him_ to tell you that?" Hodgins asked. "Did Cam and I need to be here at all?"

Cam sighed loudly, "So, after all of this we know that Booth is calling Brennan by her _name_, Sweets hasn't spoken to Booth and we all need time to adjust to the fact that there's gonna be a Booth and Brennan spawn coming our way? All good things to know but not a single one that couldn't have waited until the morning."


	24. Chapter 24

"They deserve the kindness of a lie."

After Angela and Hodgins left the bar, Sweets slid down to sit next to Cam, "I'm interested in how we're going to console Chicken Little when she learns that the sky is indeed falling."

"What?"

"Angela. We all just lied to her and honestly, I'm not sure why."

Cam took a sip of her dirty martini and then sighed, "My lab is already discombobulated. Her worrying is one thing - her knowing that the rest of us are as _or _more worried will only make it harder for us to be productive."

"I can see that logic. Are you _more_ worried?" Sweets asked in his best I'm-just-a-friend-not-a-shrink manner.

"Yeah, but...only because I've known Seeley longer and..." She glanced over at him, "You really don't see any significance in him calling her by her last name?"

"Oh, it's totally significant. I noticed it weeks ago, even before the baby bombshell. He's trying to disassociate from her, from them. It's a way to distance himself from her and who they were. It won't help."

Cam swirled the olive kabob in her drink and asked, "This really bothers you, doesn't it? To see them, especially him, like this must upset you."

"It does, of course it does."

"But you must understand, as a psychologist, all the factors in play. Right?"

Sweets sighed and set his drink down, "You guys all want me to be the 'friendly psychologist' but that's nearly impossible. There are things I can explain as a doctor that I can't accept as a friend. I know the underlying issues and the harbored fears that made him walk away from her, that are causing him to be the cold jerk we all see but I am far from ok with his actions."

She nodded, "Makes sense but...You're really not going to talk to him?"

"Are you?" He waited for her to respond but she just took a big gulp of her drink. "That's what I what I thought."

The two unlikely keepers of the balance sat in quiet, drinking and thinking.

When Cam finished her fourth martini she stated, "You know, I always expect him to do the right thing and I think he is. But the way he's approached it just feels wrong for him _and _for her."

"Reconciling with her without reconciling any of the previous problems? That is way wrong. " With Cam so willing to discuss Booth and Brennan, Sweets felt like he was betraying his two favorite former patients but he also felt like the head cheerleader asked him to prom.

"And we all assume that they talk as little at home as they do at work but we don't know that, right? Maybe they are working through things."

"I can assure, they're not."

"I know." Cam sighed as she rested her head on the bar. When she picked it back up she turned to him, "I chose a profession in which I deal with dead people to avoid this kind of drama."

Sweets smirked at her remark, "Funny.... I always thought that his reasons for being single were a mixture of poor mate choices and a career that he allowed to be come his entire life and then the partnership with Brennan kept him distracted. But now I'm entertaining the idea that the fractured family he grew up in is affecting his ability to really love someone, to commit to them wholly. He was devastated when she left but he admitted he wasn't surprised. It was like he was comforted by the fact that he knew she would leave."

Cam looked down into her glass and debated on how much he needed to know. She decided that with the state of things divulging the truth couldn't hurt. "When I first met Seeley I thought that with his charm and good looks he was the kind of man who never slept alone and would ultimately die of v.d.."

Sweets chuckled, "And after you got to know him?"

"I learned that he often slept alone and not because he didn't want to commit or feared love but because he revered it. He does not love easily. Before Brennan, the amount of time and thought he put into deciding to love someone was akin to how most people decide on whether to donate a kidney. I-I think coming to the realization that he loved Brennan and had no control over it affected him on a deeper level then I thought but he went with it because...because she loved him too. But when she left he was reminded of why he'd always been so careful in the past."

"The wall went right back?"

Cam nodded, "And I give Brennan all the credit in the world for coming back and trying to make it work. I hope it's not just for the baby - that never works out well."

Sweets shook his head, "It wasn't because of the baby."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Think about it..." He drained his drink and then continued, "Brennan, for all the ways she's grown emotionally, is still very much a slave to rationality. Rationally, it makes no sense to raise a child with someone you don't want to be with especially when you don't need them to assist with the care or help provide for that child. I'm confident when I say that she returned for him, because she loves him."

Cam considered how right the young psychologist's assessment was and smiled, "You not providing him with these little insights might be hindering him, you know?"

"I'm sorry if you have to corral Chicken Little longer than you would like but...This is all on him."


	25. Chapter 25

"... nothing in this universe happens just once...Nothing. Infinity goes in both directions."

"Angela, I'm fine....No....Why are you awake?....Because you called me....He's here, why....I'd rather not....Ok...Good night." Brennan sighed as she hung up the phone and collapsed on the bed, splaying her hair out around her. Angela had called to invite Brennan to an art exhibit the following night but Brennan thought it was important to stay home, to be with Booth.

The last two weeks had been trying for Brennan. Not only was she experiencing physical and emotional changes with the pregnancy, she was also dealing with the physical and emotional changes with Booth. He was different. They were different. The apartment was quiet all of the time. They spoke only about the things they _had _to and the rest went unsaid - so much went unsaid. They worked, they ate and they slept and more than often, none of those things were done together. It wasn't the life she had left two months prior but she had hope they could get that back. As someone who dug deep for a living, Brennan knew exactly how to secure her heels - she wasn't budging.

Often Brennan found herself trying to determine if she was playing it 'his way' correctly. There was no question that during daylight hours she was losing - he was aloof, quiet, just not _Booth_. He was still kind and concerned for her but there was a distance in his gaze that she had never been on the receiving end of. During the day, it was clear that she didn't know how to play his game.

But the night, the night was a different story entirely.

The second night she was home as they were getting for ready for bed, she reached up and took her hair down from the ponytail it had been in all day. Before the tips of her hair could brush her shoulders Booth was behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and fastening his lips to the nape of her neck. What happened next, Brennan couldn't describe as making love or just sex, it was something entirely different. It was raw and savage and almost primal. Brennan smirked to herself as she thought about that night - it was as uninhibited as she had ever seen him and it excited her for reasons she didn't understand. The unexpected satisfaction she had after being ravished in that way made it easier when Booth pulled away first and silently retreated to his side of the bed.

That night bred a pattern between them.

Gone were the nights of the slow and steady build. Gone were the nights of him worshipping every inch of her before giving into his own pleasure. Gone were the nights of sleep coming as they were still entangled with each other. In their place were a series of rapturous acts that left them both in a state of confused gratification.

Brennan padded down the hall to the kitchen where she caught a glimpse of Booth reading the pamphlets she had brought home from her first prenatal visit. She stepped back quickly and flattened her back to the wall.

The baby.

They talked about the baby but they never really _talked _about the baby. Booth was openly concerned with how she was feeling and never failed to ask if she needed or wanted anything but Brennan could see that the disconnect he felt internally was weighing on him. A few nights prior she had a terrible bout of nausea and he had sat on the side of the tub for hours keeping her company, telling her the few stories from his past that he hadn't previously shared with her. What Brennan hadn't been aware of at the time but realized now was that, that was the most time they had spent together, awake at least, in months - since the baby had been conceived. She thought but couldn't be certain that the intimate setting of the bathroom and the amount of time spent in there together caused him to sleep on the couch that night. He needed his space and who was she to judge?

It devastated her that there was a part of him trying to remain a step away from the experience because he was certain she'd leave again. And she knew that the only way for him to believe that she was staying was for her to actually stay.

Brennan slowly peered around the corner and asked, "Hey, what are you doing up?"

He quickly dropped the pamphlet, "I uh, just thinking."

Brennan leaned against the counter, "About?"

"Nothing, just normal stuff."

"I'm certain it's more than just 'normal stuff' that has you sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the night."

Booth rested his elbows on the table and ran his face down his hands, "I...I came out here to get left-overs and then I saw the soy milk and that made me think of this guy, Tim Silken, that Wendell and I brought in today. Just a real dangerous weirdo and that made me think of you."

"You think I'm a dangerous, weirdo?" Brennan asked, slightly hurt.

"No, it made me think about how happy I am you're not out there anymore, dealing with the Silkens of the world."

Brennan twitched her nose and smiled faintly, "I kind of miss the weirdos, to tell you the truth."

Booth looked over at her and smiled, reminding her how much she missed _that_ smile, "You would."

"What? They provided me with endless character ideas for my books and even _you _have to admit that some were quite amusing. What about Noel?"

"Noel?" Booth ran his hand through his hair, "Oh, the eco-warrior stalker?"

"Yes, he was very interesting." Brennan tilted her head, "Not that I'd want to spend an extended period of time alone with him but still..."

Booth raised his hands over his head and stretched. Brennan watched his t-shirt constrict and release with his movements, it was times like this when she understood why men catcalled at women from the side of the road - it was a hard to deny impulse. He dropped his hands and through a yawn he asked, "We had a hell of a run didn't we?"

"We did..."

A moment of silence passed between them as they both grieved the partnership that had been traded for the 'more important things' in life.

Booth quickly switched from the past to the present, asking, "You feeling ok? Why are you up so late?"

"I just...Angela called and woke me up and I then I thought I'd see what you were up to."

He stood and walked toward her. He reached around her and put his dirty dishes in the sink, "Ready for bed?"

"If you are...." She took notice of the muscles in his arm tensing as if he was actively trying to _not_ touch her. She reached out and gripped his forearms.

He tried to shrug her off but her grip only got tighter, "What are you doing?"

She quickly dropped her hands and fumed to herself, _apparently 'his way' means he makes the moves_. She tried to side-step him but he placed one hand on either side of her and trapped her in. With disappointment masked as anger she gave in, "Nothing... Bed?

Booth dropped his head and sighed. Brennan had noticed that one of the first casualties of her moving back in had been eye contact and in some ways that was harder to handle than everything else. "I-I just...I'm sorry."

"For what?"

His eyes shifted up to her and then back down, "Last night, the other nights...We shouldn't.. I shouldn't... it's just, it's not right."

Her eyes widened causing him to involuntarily press his forearms closer to her hips, "Because of the baby? Booth, sex is possible and sometimes encouraged well int-"

He cut her off, "Not because of the baby."

"Then why? You seem to be getting as much out of it as me. I'm assuming that my heightened reaction is from an increase in hormones and I can imagine yours is probably because it's a more animalistic sexual experience then we previously had." She explained with a wicked grin. She had learned early in in their relationship that the same sexual jargon that had made him so uncomfortable when he was just her partner had an entirely different effect on him as her boyfriend.

"It's not right...."Against every ounce of will he had he leaned his hips into hers and whispered roughly, "It's rushed and careless and not who we are."

She raised a brow and countered with her own gentle push forward, "I think it's passionate and primal and a start back to who we were."

He rocked forward ever so slightly and playfully growled, "Go to bed."

Like an in the flesh reminder of the possibly-exceptional-but-most-definitely-difficult child she was carrying Brennan refused, "I don't want to."

"What do you want?"

She smiled coyly, "What I _want _is for you to take me to bed."

Booth was certain that she remembered the last time she spoke those words to him. They were in the lab, before anyone knew about them, just out of ear shot of the team. But he also knew that she didn't know what a turning point that had been for him and the way he viewed 'them' - he had never told her. So, while she was simply trying to be cute and recall a good memory what she had actually done was reminded him of how he got to this place with one simple sentence.

He drew a finger to her lips and traced their outline before he dipped down and brushed his mouth against hers, tenderly, yet torturously slow. As he felt her snake her arms around his back and up to his neck, he tightened his grip around her waist and carefully lifted her onto the kitchen counter.

Breathlessly, she pulled back from him and gasped more than asked, "I thought this was wrong?"

Booth brushed the hair off her face, "No,_ I_ thought this was wrong. _You_ said it was a start."

She pressed her cheek to his and admitted, "I miss you calling me Bones."

"I miss that too." He wrapped his arms around her and allowed himself to be happy in that moment.

Later, after doing his best to make love to her in the manner he thought she deserved, he carried her to bed and he held her. Doing so made him question why he'd been so afraid to since she returned. Then the question he was too afraid to ask started to run through his mind. He needed to know if she was there for him or the baby or a combination of the two but asking left no more chance for speculation and maybe no more chance for hope. Instead, as he rested his forehead in her hair he asked, "Why did you have my shirt at your Dad's? I noticed it when I was there and it just seemed...you know?"

"I don't know. It was in my car and it felt like a piece of home, it was like having a piece of you."

He mumbled an agreement of her reasoning and closed his eyes. As they fell asleep that night, they both wondered how much of him was ever really hers.


	26. Chapter 26

"I'm touring the hottest places in the universe. Next stop... Hell."

"You know, Wendell is good but he's not you." Booth announced as he fell into bed the following week. It was the middle of the night and he'd been out a crime scene since before dusk.

"Obviously, he's not me but what do you mean?" Brennan asked as she watched him fight with the blankets on the bed.

"He's just so...He's so worried about making a mistake that he takes forever. He really takes your no conjecture rule to heart - it's annoying."

Brennan smiled, "I am a very good teacher."

He rolled over on his side to set his alarm, "What time is your appointment in the morning?"

"It's at 8am - are you coming?"

"You want me to, right? If you want me to go, I'll go."

"I do want you to but..."

Before burying his head in the pillow, he turned toward her, "Then I'm going, ok?"

She nodded faintly, "Ok."

"Ok." He pecked her forehead before turning away and shutting off the light.

The following morning, after attending Brennan's appointment with her, Booth was looming over Wendell on the forensic platform waiting for any information regarding the case. "You still have nothing new?"

"I'm sorry but I have never seen injuries like this. Maybe when Dr. Brennan gets in she'll have a better idea." Wendell glanced up, "Where is Dr. Brennan?"

"Yeah, Booth." Angela stepped toward them, "It's not like her to not be here when a new body is brought in. Everything ok?"

Booth turned, "She's fine. After her doctor's appointment this morning, she was tired so she's taking the day. Cut her some slack, she is pregnant."

"Funny, I was going to offer you the same morsel of advice."

Wendell and Cam looked at each other and tried to shrink away from the argument that was sure to ensue.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"Look, it's no secret that you've been...you've been less than..."

He stepped toward her, "Spit it out."

"I just never took you as the kind of guy who would be so cold toward someone he claimed to love who was carrying his child."

"I am _not _cold. You have no clue what goes on between she and I." He took another small step toward her, "I'd drop it if I were you."

Angela had been waiting weeks to get this out and she honesty didn't care about the public setting. "Oh no buddy, you _are_ cold and while I may not know what goes on behind closed doors, I know you and I know her and I know something isn't right. She left you - big stinkin' deal! How long are you going to punish her for that? She did come back!"

Her words hit Booth hard mainly because he'd been trying to determine for weeks if he was, in fact, punishing her. He never believed that he could be that cruel and even in the midst of his current character crisis he didn't think he was made that way. His face softened and his voice dropped, "We're working on things. We are."

The change in his demeanor did little to squelch the artist's rage, "What is there to work out? There is a baby, Booth. You and Bren are having a baby and to tell you the truth you seem less than thrilled about that."

"How I feel..._that _is none of your business. None." He didn't feel the need to explain the life he and Brennan were living away from the judgmental gaze of everyone they knew. Things between them had always been veiled by their own secretive nature and he felt that this was no different.

"You knowingly lured her into this place where she felt safe and secure and now you're exploiting that. The saddest part of it all is that she probably doesn't even realize it! Because to her you will always be the Booth that protects her and she will do anything she can to avoid the fact that you have emotionally abandoned her!"

Booth scoffed, "She wouldn't be with me if she didn't want to - you know that....I have put up with your crap for years because you're her best friend and I have always thought that your heart was in the right place but no more. Got it? Back off, Angela."

She fixed her hands to her hips, "At least I have a heart."

"So, now I'm a cold, heartless guy who's what?" His gaze bore into her forehead, "Just going through the motions of a relationship to what end?"

"You tell me."

"I find it fascinating that a woman who lives her life the way you do thinks she has any right giving me advice about my family. I'm out of here - I don't need this." He turned on his heel and pointed at Wendell, "Call me if you find anything."

"You know, Booth." Angela called out to his back, "It's not gonna be much of a family when Bren gets fed up with living with the bitter shell of a man that you've become. You're afraid she'll run again and all you're doing is holding the door open for her."


	27. Chapter 27

"What you have is faith, baby."

"Ange, is everything ok?" Brennan asked as she opened the front door a few hours later.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" The artist cautiously asked as she entered the apartment. She wanted or rather needed to be the one to tell Brennan about her verbal tussle with Booth and she was afraid she was already too late.

"It's the middle of the day and you're here without any warning."

Angela smiled, she was getting to her friend first. "Oh, Booth mentioned that you were feeling kinda run down and I had some errands in the area and I thought...Would you rather I go?"

"No, of course not." Brennan climbed back into the nest of pillows and blankets on the couch she had been lounging in all day. "Sit please."

"How was your appointment?"

"Fine, things are progressing as they should. Booth just th0ught it would be good if I rested today."

"Booth..." Angela muttered under her breath.

"What about Booth?"

Angela's lips twitched back and forth, "When he was at the lab today, he and I had a minor verbal sparring match."

"About what?"

"You and his regard or rather disregard for you and the baby."

Brennan turned in her seat and leaned forward, "What do you mean?"

Angela inhaled sharply, "I told him what you won't - that's he's being cold and rather heartless about things."

"I really need you to explain yourself a little better than that."

"I've noticed, we've all noticed actually, how he's been since you moved back in and I'm worried about you, for you. Are these the best living conditions?"

Brennan took her friend's words in entirely before asking slowly, "You're worried about me living with Booth?"

"In a way, yes."

"Because you think that he's cold and heartless?" Brennan was still struggling to fully grasp Angela's words. "And yet a few weeks ago you were the one telling me how special what he and I have is and that he was one of the 'all-time great guys', correct?"

"Well, that was before he stopped calling you Bones and stopped...he stopped being Booth and I don't know why it doesn't bother you more!"

Brennan nodded slowly and then fixed her gaze on Angela, "You have no understanding of how things really are between Booth and I."

"Maybe not but I have an excellent understanding of men and women and I totally understand that he's been a jerk and someone needed to put him in his place."

"Neither of those things are true." Brennan whipped the blanket off of her legs and stood. "Do you have any idea...You don't so I can't even ask the question. It may not be rational but I know that he's going through something deeply complicated in his own mind and...and I will be here when he's figured out. I know that he will figure this out."

"He's punishing you for leaving - for hurting him and he needs to get over it."

"Is that what you told him?"

Angela ignored her question and with a tilt of her head, asked her own. "Has he given you any reason to think that he thinks the baby is a good thing?"

"I think you should leave." Brennan suggested as she crossed her arms tightly across her chest.

"Why because I'm forcing you to confront the sad truths that you've been avoiding?"

"No, because you are pontificating on a subject that you know nothing about! You don't see what I see and you don't feel what I feel and I..." Brennan exhaled deeply and tried to regain her calm, "He has been distant - I can concede to that but I understand that as I do him and I can't fault him for that."

Angela ran her hands down her face, she wasn't sure what to address first - the fact that her once empirical best friend was now making major life decisions based on feelings or that she was being kicked out of that same best friend's home, "Bren just...What if he never comes back? Not entirely. Are you prepared for a life of less-than?"

Brennan wasn't certain what she meant by 'a life of less-than' but she was almost certain it was the way she'd been living before she had opened herself up to the possibility of love. "It's not ok for you to come here and accuse Booth of levying a punishment on me that the man is simply not capable of. Then adding to that the fact that you think he doesn't want this child..." She paused as she decided to give away a piece of who they were, "I wake up every morning and his hand is on my stomach and he tells me that he loves me...Seeley Booth is a lot of things but he is not a liar."

Not long after an apologetic and confused Angela had left there was another knock at the door. Brennan sighed dramatically as she went to open it.

On the other side of the door was a man, in his late 50's or early 60's, with the same symmetrical features as Booth.

He smiled and appeared slightly confused, "You're not Rebecca."

"No, I'm Temperance. And you are?"

"Oh, I'm Seeley's, uh Uncle Robert. And the last time I was in town he was shacked up with a blond."

Brennan nodded, "That was quite some time ago. Would you like to come in?"

"Nah, can you just let him know that I'll be at the Hyperion Hotel for the next day or so? Tell him I'd really like to see him."

When Booth arrived home later, he timidly entered the apartment. He had spent the bulk of his day trying to decide if he should tell Brennan about what happened between he and Angela. And he still wasn't sure what the right thing to do was. He found Brennan in the kitchen.

Coyly she asked, "How was your day?"

He slowly undid his tie and sighed, "Same old, same old. You?"

So, they weren't going to discuss Angela's outburst, Brennan was ok with that - for now. "Fine...Your Uncle Robert stopped by. You've never mentioned him."

"Robert you said?" Booth asked with his hands hitched to his waist.

"Yes, he stopped by, was surprised I wasn't Rebecca and told me to tell you that he'd like for you to stop by and see him at the Hyperion - he'll be in town for the next few days."

Brennan watched as Booth abruptly left the room and came back just as quickly, "I-I don't have an uncle named Robert."

"But he looked remarkably like you. He was structured more like Jared but the resemblance irrefutable."

Booth shook his head once, "Yeah, that happens with fathers and sons."


	28. Chapter 28

"You gotta love a self-destructive man with values."

Booth claimed a headache and went to bed early. When Brennan joined him a few hours later, she found him still awake staring at the moonlight that was streaked across the bedroom ceiling.

"Are you going to see your Dad tomorrow?" She asked as she eased herself into the bed.

"I-I don't know."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not tonight." He responded with his eyes closed almost as if he refused to look at her.

Brennan rolled over and propped her head up with her elbow, "Do you want to talk about the conversation you had with Angela?"

He mimicked her movement and faced her, "You know?"

"Angela came by earlier and told me."

"Why would she do that?"

She shrugged, "I got the feeling that she was torn over whether confronting you in that manner was a good thing or a bad thing."

"Which was it?"

"It was a bad thing. And none of her business."

Booth rolled over onto his back, "If the roles were reversed I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing."

"I don't understand."

"If she was hurting you, I would step in."

"But you're not hurting me."

"That's debatable."

"No, no it's not." She sighed as she slowly covered the length of his body with her own. "I don't feel hurt."

He reached up and tucked the auburn hair that was cascading against her cheeks behind her ears, "Ange wasn't wrong. I know I've been cold and I know that you deserve more than this."

"Like I told her, I can't deny that you've been distant because you have but... Seeing as how I practically invented being distant, I understand."

"I wish you wouldn't."

"What?"

"I wish you wouldn't be so damn understanding! It doesn't suit you." He suddenly realized that his statement would have been much more effective if he was on his feet instead of pinned down in bed by Brennan. With her clad in nothing but his St. Joe's t-shirt with her bare legs wrapped around his own he didn't really feel in command of the current situation.

"You don't want me to understand you? That's a ridiculous request."

He pressed his palms into his eyes and sighed, "W-Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Because...I know you. And I know that regardless of your feelings for me or us, you still would have asked me to come home because it was the right thing to do."

"You're not really building your case here, Bones."

She gripped the sides of his face, "But you wouldn't be trying so hard to stay connected to me if you didn't love me, if you didn't truly want me here."

"Connected?"

"Yes."

"In what way?"

She pulled the collar of her t-shirt down to reveal a dark red, almost purple mark roughly the size of his mouth in the hollow between her neck and collarbone.

He gently traced the outline of it, "That's not a mark of connection as much as it's a sign of deflection."

"Deflection?"

"Yeah, I can't look you in the eye but I have no trouble throwing you down in the middle of the night and mauling you. I'm replacing one way of dealing with you for another."

Brennan dipped her head down and brushed her lips against his, "I kinda like your new way."

"And you know I don't. I mean, not that I don't like it...I just want - you know what I mean, right?"

She nodded, "I do. I think you're over thinking all of it which is ironic given who we are but...You've taught me that sex is a good balm for the rough spots in life and between us it's _very _good. I just...I love that you want me that much."

Effortlessly, he rolled her over and gazed down at her, "I may not say it enough but I need you here."

"I know you do." She arched her back, bringing her lips up to his and tugged at his bottom lip with her two.

He gently massaged her earlobes between his thumb and forefingers. There was a level of safety in the darkened room and for the first time he let himself ask, "Why did you come home?"

"I was wondering when you'd get around to asking me that." She gently dusted his jawline with her lips before pulling back and responding. "I didn't come back because of the baby, that's what you _really_ want to know isn't it?"

He flinched ever so faintly but remained silent.

"And I didn't come back because you're my home or because you're my family - while both those things are true." She saw questions in his eyes so she continued, "I came back because I love you."

"Why?" He muttered - barely audible.

"Why what?"

He cleared his throat and then asked the neediest, most self-serving question anyone can ask, "Why do you love me?"


	29. Chapter 29

"Sometimes I'm afraid when you go  
Sometimes I'm afraid when you come home"

~ Cyndi Lauper, _Fearless _

_He cleared his throat and then asked the neediest, most self-serving question anyone can ask, "Why do you love me?" _

"Normally, I would turn the question back around to you and then formulate my response based on yours but...Do you know what a tautology is?" Brennan asked as she sat up in the bed.

"I really don't." Booth sighed.

"A tautology is a logical statement in which the conclusion is equivalent to the premise. Something that is because it just simply is."

"Ok."

"The reason why I love you is a tautology. I just do and...I'm certain that I could list many things that would make you feel better but they wouldn't be as true as me saying that I love you because I just love you, Booth." Brennan looked over and saw Booth rubbing his jaw and smiling. "What about that statement is humorous?"

"The statement isn't funny, Bones. It's just...If anyone else in the world tried to say that to me I would think it was a total cop out or an excuse because they didn't have a real reason but you...You mean it, don't you?"

"You know I don't believe in making excuses."

He reached behind her and slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the top of the head and whispered, "Thank you, Bones."

They sat in silence for several minutes before Booth asked, "You really didn't come home because of the baby."

"Not because of, no. I was coming back regardless - I decided that before I even knew I was pregnant."

"You... I mean, Bones...Knowing that helps." Booth pulled the blankets up around his chest and slowly laid down. When she didn't follow suit he asked, "What's wrong?"

"I didn't come home because of the baby, but I'm not certain you would have asked me to if I wasn't pregnant." She didn't wait for him to respond before laying down because she knew she was right and that he wouldn't tell her otherwise. Even though he had recently revealed sides of himself that she never knew existed she was still certain that he would never lie to her.

* * *

"Did your Dad get a hold of you?" Rebecca asked Booth the next morning when she stopped by the apartment to pick up a book Parker had left behind.

"Uh, yeah...He uh, stopped by here. I wasn't home. Did you talk to him?"

"No, he left a message while I was out. It's pretty sad that my number is the last number he had for you, Seeley."

Booth shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and slumped against the wall. "I-I haven't talked to him since before Parker was born - you know that, Becca."

"Maybe it's time you do."

"Are you here to give me life advice?"

Rebecca smiled, "It seems someone needs to. Where's Temperance?"

"She went to work. She wasn't feeling great yesterday so she's making up for it today."

"How are things?"

Booth rolled his eyes, "_Things_ are fine. Things are good."

"Well..." Rebecca placed her hands on her hips and looked around the apartment. "If things are so fine and good maybe it's time you to tackle your Daddy. You always said that it wasn't necessary or the right time but I always took that as you weren't ready and you were scared because there wasn't really a place for you to fall afterwards but now...."

His gaze bore into her, "My father issues what split us up?"

"Uh no. It wasn't your dad or mine." She sat down at the kitchen counter.

"Your father hated me."

"It's not that my Dad didn't like you, Seeley. He just was concerned about you and me. He told me once that there were times when he caught you staring at nothing and you had a 'dead behind the eyes' look. A look that he said he saw in guys he served with and that they never got rid of. I never saw it myself."

"Then what did?"

"What did what?"

Booth looked down at the tile under him and mumbled, "What split us up?"

Rebecca tilted her head, "Why do you want to know now? Ten years after the fact when you have a new life and a baby on the way."

"I-I'm...I don't know, I just...I feel like I'm going to fall off a ledge and..." He took a seat across from her, "You loved me, had a child with me and left me."

"And you think history's gonna repeat itself?"

He shrugged half-heartedly.

"When I first met you I thought...Oh, God....I thought you were perfect. I thought I had won the damn lottery."

"And once you got to know me?"

She smiled sympathetically, "I realized that you _could_ be perfect for someone else but not for me."

"And why not you?"

"Seel, when we were together I felt loved and cared for and safe. I honestly thought that was all anyone needed. We laughed and got along and...And then one day, I was out having lunch with the girls and they were all talking about the men in their lives. You know, some were afraid that they were being cheated on or that their guy was just going to just up and leave and then it hit me."

"What?"

She reached across the kitchen island and gripped his wrist, "I knew that you would never cheat on me. I never worried that you would leave but I suddenly realized that I was terrified you would never really arrive."

Booth leaned back and exhaled deeply, "I was only ever yours - when we were together, I mean."

"You can't give something away you don't own outright."

"I'm my own man, Rebecca."

"People who possess themselves stand up and fight for themselves, Seeley!"

"I have fought everyday of life."

She stood and ran her hands through her hair, "Yeah for your country, for victims, for the innocent - but never for yourself. The fact that you haven't spoken to your father in almost a decade is a prime example of that. Call him, go see him - let him know the effect he had on you and the way you live your life."

"Just because I don't want to talk to him doesn't mean that I don't stand up for myself."

"Ok, fine. " She leaned, straight-armed, on the counter. "What about you and me? You asked me to marry you once and then you ran away with your tail between your legs."

"You said no! What was I supposed to do?"

"I'm just saying that you only asked once and I don't think that a second proposal would have changed things but we'll never know will we?"

Booth pulled his arms tightly across his chest, "No, we will not."

"And what about Parker? In this day and age men have rights, fathers have rights and you have never once taken any kind of legal action to see him more often when I know that's all you want!"

"I've never thought putting him through that was fair and we've managed to work things out, for the most part."

She smiled as she dropped back into her seat. "That just leaves you and Temperance."

"What do you know about me and her? I tell you very little."

"I don't know a lot, I can admit that."

Booth stood, "Then maybe you should stop while you're ahead, Becca."

"I don't know exactly what happened to cause the split. But I would wager everything I have in this world that when she told you that she was leaving you did little to nothing to make her stay. You just let her go instead standing up and making your case known. You're so afraid that your love will be denied that you just let her go."

He looked over her head and chewed in the inside of his cheek.

She stepped toward him and stuck her index finger on his chest, "If you don't want a redo of us, you need to learn to fight."


	30. Chapter 30

"Underneath your affable exterior is a deep reservoir of rage. My question is: Do you always have that under control?"

Booth stood in the hallway on the 18th floor of the Hyperion Hotel trying to muster up the courage to face his father. He took a deep breath and puposefully knocked on the door.

When his father opened the door, the two men stared each other down. Cataloging the changes that a decade had brought. After several minutes Booth finally said, "I hear you've been looking for me."

"I hear I'm gonna be a grandfather again."

"How'd you find out where I live?"

Robert leaned against the door frame and smiled, "You'd be surprised what a tilt of the head, a sincere smile and a story of a long- lost father looking for his son will get people to tell you."

"Why are you here?"

"I was told you I heard you were having another kid."

"I am."

"With a diferent woman?"

Booth nodded once without looking at his father.

"You gonna marry this one?"

Booth shrugged off the question and asked, "I haven't seen you or talked to you in 10 years and now you're here - why?" Booth shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. Marriage was something that he hadn't even considered with Brennan since she came back

"Do you want to come in and have a seat?" Robert asked moving so there was room for Booth to enter.

"I-I'd rather go down to the restaurant in the lobby and talk." Booth couldn't stand the thought of being closed up in a small room with is father.

They said little as they made their way downstairs to the restaurant.

Once they were settled at their table they both looked at each other awkwardly. Booth's father spoke first. "Can you believe the Phils finally won the World Series?"

Booth nodded, "Yeah, that was great."

"Father Pete finally retired, 45 years he spent in the parish. You remember him, right?"

"Of course, he was my first confessor." Booth took a sip of his water and leaned back in his chair. "How have you been Dad?"

"Fine. Sold the shop last year now I just...." He sighed, "I just putter around. How have you been? Jared tries to keep me updated on you but..."

"I'm fine." Booth responded flatly.

"Who's the girl at your apartment?"

"My girlfriend, Temperance Brennan."

"She's pregnant?"

Booth nodded and was thankful that the conversation was interrupted by the waiteress bringing their meals out.

As Robert mixed up his pasta he mentioned, "I'd like to meet her sometime."

"Nah, you wouldn't like her."

"Why not?"

Booth dropped his fork and leaned toward his father, "Because she's a strong-willed, independent woman who doesn't take crap from anyone - she's really not your type. She's not the kind you can push around."

"After all these years you still blame me for your mother leaving? She chose to leave - I had no say in the matter."

"She was your wife." Booth leaned back in his chair. "If I rememeber correctly you never even went to look for her. You just gave up and dumped us with Pops."

"Your mother was a difficult woman to love. She was so emotional and full of guilt all the time."

"So, you take no responsibility for all of this? The fact that you're a drunk with a mean temper had nothing to do with my mother leaving me?"

"I haven't had a drink in almost 15 years!" Robert threw his napkin on the table, "You know you get your bleeding heart from her. I told her naming you Seeley was a bad idea, such a girlie name. But no, she had her heart set on it."

"I-I can't believe I actually wanted to see you today." Booth exhaled deeply, "There was a part of me that actually thought we might be able to get along and be civil but...You haven't changed - even sober you're a mean SOB."

"I'm just honest and you've never been strong enough for the truth."

Before walking away, Booth stood from the table and leaned down toward his father, "It's kinda hard to be strong with a broken arm or leg or collar bone courtesy of dear old Dad."


	31. Chapter 31

*I wanted to apologize for forgetting to post the last chapter when I originally posted it elsewhere. I didn't realize it until this morning when I attempted to post this next chapter. Sorry for the wait.

" We're going down the rabbit hole here people."

Booth had never denied, at least to himself, that he was angry with his dad but he had always maintained, at least with everyone else, that he loved the man. Seeing him after 10 years of no contact only confirmed for Booth that both of those things were still very true. And he knew that he needed to confess those truths, regardless of who was listening, and admit their effects on his life.

As he sat in his truck systematically going over every word he and his father had exchanged. He tried to determine at what point in the conversation he went from hoping things could be different between them to knowing they would never be different. And he wondered whose fault that was.

Just like the boy who first learned of the kind of man his father fundamentally was, Booth started to blame himself for the outcome of their conversation. He found himself thinking, _if I had just said this..... if I had done that...then it wouldn't have been that bad_. He slammed his palm against the steering wheel to stop from falling into an old, but never forgotten routine.

Steadying his breathing, clinging to a scrap of control that he was certain he'd lost along the way to this place, Booth tried to remind himself over and over again, it would have always been _that_ bad regardless of anything he did to change the outcome. Because the sad, unavoidable truth was that his father, sober or not, was never the kind of person to give a part of himself away to anyone - no matter how much the other person needed it, even if his own son begged for it.

Years before, he realized that that his father would never be the man he needed or wanted him to be. He had been certain then and all the years since that he had dealt with that fact and that it didn't concern his life as an adult. But now it was painfully evident that knowing who his father was and accepting it were two different things entirely. He feared that until he was able to do the latter he'd never conduct himself emotionally with anything other than the instincts of a scared child.

Staring at his reflection in the rear-view mirror, he saw little that he recognized. This reminded him of something he'd been told not that long ago. Something he didn't think was true at the time but now, in the dim light of the parking garage, was undeniable.

Booth had spent three decades of his life wrestling his internal demons alone because asking for help about those types of things isn't what men do, or so he'd always believed. But then, so many of the things he had relied on to guide him in the past were failing him now.

Against his better judgment he decided it was time to make a terrifying request.

"I want to be found." Booth announced as he barged into Sweets' office less than an hour later.

"And I want people to knock before entering but..." Sweets deadpanned.

"You told me once I was so lost that I was afraid to be found." Booth collapsed on to the couch across from the doctor, "Now,_ I_ want to be found. So, find me."


	32. Chapter 32

"Okay, what's our deal?.....Yeah, yeah, what-what-what are you-- FBI shrink, friend, objective observer? "

"Why me? Is Dr. Wyatt slammed with the dinner rush?" Sweets asked.

"What?"

Sweets shook his head, "Never mind..."

"Awhile back you seemed to have some pretty good ideas about me and why I'm the way I am and...." Booth bit the inside of his lip, "I just...can we talk?"

"I'm kind of busy." Sweets glanced down at the table in front of him, hoping that Booth wouldn't notice the obvious lie.

"Come on, Sweets."

Sweets dropped his pen and looked up again, "Given the fact that I'm no longer your assigned therapist and your visit isn't relevant to an active investigation..." Sweets stalled, knowing that what he felt he had to say wouldn't be received well. "If you are in need of psychological intervention, you should call my supervisor and they'll work with you to set up a treatment plan. If you feel that it's an emergency then....then I would direct you to the nearest hospital. "

Booth cocked a brow and smiled, "A hospital? You're kidding me, right?"

"I'm really not."

"Are you really going to make me go through channels to talk to you?"

"That is the official bureau policy." Sweets folded his hand in his lap - practicing tough love didn't come easily for him.

"Since when do you need permission to talk to me, Sweets?"

Sweets kept his voice steady, knowing that remaining reserved was paramount at this time, "Since you stopped talking to me or anyone else in your life, Booth."

"Is that what this uber-professional-shrink routine is about?" Booth sighed and rolled his eyes, "Sorry if I hurt your feelings because I haven't had time to chat but in case you haven't heard, my life's been a little crazy lately."

"Personally, I am a little hurt but, uh... professionally I'm very concerned."

"Concerned?"

"Yes, it's a matter of concern when someone strays from their usual behavior." When Booth threw Sweets a quizzical look, he continued, "Engaging in a shouting match at the Jeffersonian regarding personal issues is out of the norm for you."

"How do you know about that?"

Sweets cleared his throat and adjusted himself in his chair, "I stopped by there yesterday afternoon."

"I'm sure that whatever you heard was blown way out of proportion - Angela exaggerates."

"Yes, she does but Cam doesn't."

"So what? You can't talk to me cause I lost my temper? Are you made at me too? "

"Do you think I should be?"

Booth dramatically exhaled, "What I _think _is that people should limit their opinions to things they know about."

"And the way you see it, none of us know you? That we don't know your less-than-presentable appearance, your surly demeanor and the lack of interest in your work all point to something being wrong?"

Knowing that Sweets' observation was mostly correct, Booth latched onto the one thing he could dispute, "I am not surly."

"Fine, let's call it your cold, rage-filled demeanor. These changes we all see make us question if the you we know is really you."

Booth glared as the doctor, "Bones knows me, that's the important thing."

"You hope she does." Sweets muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing...I have an appointment so..." He motioned for Booth to leave.

"You're kicking me out? I thought you lived for this kind of stuff?"

Sweets shook his head quickly and leaned forward, "When you look at me who do you see?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"I see you as a friend, a co-worker and if you view me anywhere near the same, I have to ask you to seek counsel with someone else."

Booth furrowed his brow, "What changed? You used to offer me 'counsel' even when I didn't seek it but now when I need it you're out to lunch - thanks."

"The deviations in your behavior that have been witnessed recently suggest that you are having a type of internal crisis. A crisis that would be better served by an objective therapist who has no emotional ties to you. You need to talk to someone who isn't personally invested in the outcome of it all."

"Fine." Booth snapped as he stood and made his way to the door, before opening it he quietly admitted, "I-I saw my father today."

There was a vulnerability in Booth's voice that warranted Sweets to call a time out on his tough love approach. The 'deeper calling' to help others he was once told he had took over. Leaning forward, he nodded slowly and asked, "How does that make you feel?"


	33. Chapter 33

"Wrong ology. Keep your grubby anthro hands off my psych."

"Cam, I wanted to apologize for missing work yesterday." Brennan said as she cautiously stood outside the autopsy room.

Cam looked up from her desk and smiled sympathetically, "Really, it's fine."

"I recognize that I have plenty of sick days available to me but I hadn't anticipated needing to use them so early in the pregnancy."

"Really, you could show up here two days a week and still get twice as much work done as anyone else. I'm not worried."

Brennan smiled faintly, "Thanks for understanding, Cam."

Casually, Cam mused, "Honestly, I don't know that I could even concentrate on work if I was in your position."

"Why? Most women continue to work well into their pregnancies, why should I be any different?" Brennan asked as she moved closer to the pathologist.

Cam pursed her lips and looked down at her desk. She had a choice; she could let Brennan walk away thinking that the comment was only about the baby or she could tell her the truth. She swallowed hard and chose the truth, hoping Brennan would respect her for it. "I-It's no secret that things between you and Booth are strained and I can't imagine how difficult it must be with the baby coming."

Brennan shoved her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and tilted her chin up, "I'd rather not discuss that…I appreciate the concern but you need not worry, it's going to be fine."

Cam watched as Brennan slowly turned to leave and mumbled under her breath, "He's lucky you're you."

"I'm sorry?" Brennan asked as she whipped around to face Cam again.

"I-I just…" Cam folded her hands on her desk and gathered her thoughts, "It's just that not many women would stay and put up with this kind of behavior - I know I wouldn't."

"You wouldn't?"

"I couldn't."

"May I ask why?" Brennan asked timidly.

"Because life is too short to be miserable."

"I am not miserable."

Cam shook her head once, "But you're not happy are you?"

"Why do you care? Why does anyone care about my relationship with Booth?" Brennan asked in an exasperated shrill.

Because she had known that the time for this talk would come, Cam had armed herself with information supporting an argument that she knew Brennan couldn't dispute. Calmly, she looked up at Brennan and responded, "Because if the people in this lab were wolves, you and Booth would be the alpha pair. And because of that simple fact, we can't help but be concerned about the two of you."

"Wolves?" Brennan asked, with a slightly stunned look on her face.

"Yes, in wolf packs the alpha male and female are known as the alpha pair and-."

Brennan sharply raised her hand and cut Cam off, "I'm well acquainted with the social hierarchy of most species."

"Then you know that while most of the time the alpha male sets the tone for the pack, including his female, there is one time when he doesn't."

"The female becomes dominant during the mating season, while the pack keeps their distance to allow for successful copulation. Then her dominance over the pack continues throughout the gestation period and until the pups are ready to join the pack on their own....Why bring this up?"

Cam rolled her eyes, "You can't see how this applies to you at all?"

"I-I...You know that I don't..." Brennan sighed and leaned against the pillar next to Cam's desk. "I'm pregnant so I see that connection but..."

"I know that there is a part of you that feels guilty for leaving him, for hurting him and because of that you have allowed him to…" Cam looked up and realized that Brennan didn't need to be reminded of what she'd allowed Booth in recent weeks. "What I'm trying to say is that you are the only one who can snap him out of this funk he's in. I'm not certain that even he has that power at the moment."

"He needs time."

"No, he needs his alpha female to step up and set the tone."

Brennan shook her head, "How?"

"You know how, you've been watching him do it for years."


	34. Chapter 34

"Live by the bone, die by the bone."

"You don't really want to talk to me about this, do you?" Booth asked as he slowly returned to the couch.

"It's not that I don't want to, it's more like…" Sweets cleared his throat, "How was your father?"

"I don't really want to talk about my father."

"You came here today, after seeing him for the first time in a number of years but you don't want to talk about him?" Sweets asked Booth after he gave in and offered his counsel.

"I know the deal with my dad. I don't need to hash _that_ out."

"Then why come here asking to be found afterwards. Surely seeing him must have spurred something in your mind."

Booth leaned forward, his hands folded out in front of him, "Seeing him today made me realize that…I'm not the man I thought I was. I'm not him…"

"What does that mean to you?"

"What does that question even mean?"

Sweets leaned forward, "How do you feel about realizing that you aren't the one thing you never wanted to be?"

Booth thought for a moment and then asked, "Good?"

"You feel good?"

"Yeah, I think I do. I mean, I feel a little…confused…I mean, who am I if I'm not…you know?"

Sweets nodded, "Crisis of character…Booth, you know who you are. Deep down, where it counts, you know."

"Does Bones?" He asked just above a whisper.

"I'm not the person to tell you that. But…" Sweets exhaled deeply.

"But what?" Booth asked as he leaned toward the doctor.

"Dr. Brennan she's…I can't see her going through this…this…I don't even know what to call but I can't see her going through it with you, for you, if she doesn't know you."

"It's because of the baby." He rasped.

Sweets shook his head, "Do you really believe that? Really? After all these years and everything you've been through together, do you honestly believe that she's putting up with you being an…well, honestly you're being an ass? You think that's why she's still with you? If you believe that – you don't _know_ her."

"I know her. That's the only thing I'm sure."

The doctor smiled, "As the Boss once said, 'God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.' "

With a furrowed brow Booth asked, "You're quoting Springsteen to me? You spent how many years in college and you're quoting Sprinsteen?"

"Hey, inspiration is found where you least expect it."


End file.
